03/09/2005
NEWS STORY
Having warned that Michelin sees no point continuing in Formula One should the FIA pursue its plans of introducing a control tyre, the company's Motorsport Director, Pierre Dupasquier, has revealed that a sole supplier could still 'favour' one team over its rivals, and strongly hinted that this has previously happened with Bridgestone.
"If I wanted to favour a given team, I would develop tyres for that team by optimising this balance," he revealed. "Then I would reproduce this tyre for everyone. Even if the tyres were allocated at random, the team being favoured would profit from this development whatever happened.
"A tyre developed to match the balance of that team's car would have little chance of being the optimal solution for the other cars," he added.
"I wasn't involved at the time, but this is what I have been led to believe happened following explanations from the teams who came knocking at our door in 1999 and 2000 to run on Michelin tyres and who say they want to continue with Michelin today."
Following Goodyear's withdrawal from F1 at the end of 1998, Bridgestone was the sole tyre supplier in 1999 and 2000, before Michelin returned to the sport in 2001, following an absence of seventeen years.
The first teams to switch from Bridgestone to Michelin in 2001 were Prost, Jaguar, Minardi, Benetton (Renault) and WilliamsF1. McLaren made the switch a year later, when Toyota made its F1 debut.