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Michelin vs Bridgestone

The tyre conformance situation is not over yet. The FIA decided to sample one set of tyres from Williams (Michelin) and Ferrari (Bridgestone) after the Italian GP. The FIA has the intention of verifying the dimensions of the tyres but also their compound, which should take a long time.

This might be Michelin's response to Bridgestone. It appears that during private testing at Monza, Michelin engineers noticed that the front and rear Bridgestone tyres were wearing differently. According to them, this could mean that the compound on the front tyres and rear tyres are different, which is against the regulation (FIA Sporting regulation, article 76b).

"We have no case against Bridgestone," said a Michelin spokesperson. "but it is true that our partners noticed some anomalies on rival teams' tyres. We only mentioned this situation to the FIA."

Bridgestone admitted that the FIA is analysing a set of their tyres, taken after the race at Monza but the tyre manufacturer is confident that no regulation infringement will be found.

The FIA laboratory will also verify the symmetry of the tyres' grooves. Pierre Dupasquier admitted recently that he was doubting the conformity of Bridgestone tyres in that area. Article 77 of the FIA Sporting regulation mentions :

b. All dry-weather tyres must incorporate circumferential grooves square to the wheel axis and around the entire circumference of the contact surface of each tyre.
c. Each front dry-weather tyre, when new, must incorporate 4 grooves which are :
- arranged symmetrically about the centre of the tyre tread.

Of course this tiresome situation is starting to overshadow the exciting championship finale. Let's just hope that the tyre regulation controversy is not coming back to divert attention from the real battle at hand.

bron: www.f1-live.com

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