San Marino: Michelin confident of sustained speed

By Michelin Sport
April 23 2006

Jenson Button has qualified on the front row of the grid for the third consecutive Formula One race after posting a 1:22.988 lap during qualifying for tomorrow's San Marino Grand Prix.

The Englishman, who is the only driver to have lined up in the top three for all four world championship races this season, will start second, alongside Ferrari driver Michael Schumacher.

Several Michelin drivers are well placed ahead of tomorrow's race. Button's team-mate Rubens Barrichello will start third ahead of world championship leader Fernando Alonso, Juan Pablo Montoya and Kimi Raikkonen.

Alonso's team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella is using a new-specification V8 this weekend. Alonso will get to use it for the first time during the Grand Prix of Europe, at the Nurburgring on May 7.

During the knock-out phases of today's qualifying session, Christian Klien, Scott Speed, Tiago Monteiro, Christijan Albers, Takuma Sato and Yuji Ide fell at the first hurdle, while Giancarlo Fisichella, Jacques Villeneuve, Nico Rosberg, David Coulthard, Nick Heidfeld and Vitantonio Liuzzi stumbled at the second. Heidfeld crashed at Rivazza while trying to make the cut.

Lap times were incredibly close as drivers vied for a place in the top 10 shoot-out: only 0.053s separated Mark Webber (fifth) from 11-placed Fisichella.

Nick Shorrock
Formula One Director
Michelin

"This year, Michelin's main technical objective for Imola was to make tyres that performed more consistently over long runs than they did in 2005 and our engineers have clearly done a very good job. Obviously the race stints are shorter this season, but our tyres are generating strong first-lap pace while remaining very clean and consistent for 20 laps or more at a time.

"We knew we'd have to fight hard to repeat last season's San Marino Grand Prix victory and that will clearly be the case. It seems likely, though, that teams at the front of the grid have adopted a variety of strategies and we will have to see how things evolve tomorrow afternoon.

"Between them, our six partners have chosen to use three different Michelin specifications and we are confident that all will deliver sustained speed and consistency in racing conditions."

Nick Fry
Chief Executive Officer
Honda Racing F1

"Second and third positions on the grid are clearly great for us. The performance of our Michelin tyres has been exceptional all weekend and we've been very confident – not only for qualifying but also for the race tomorrow. We appear to have a tyre that is not only very strong over one lap, but also good throughout a race stint. We don't have any concerns at all, so thank you very much to Michelin."