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BMW WilliamsF1 driver Juan
Pablo Montoya was best of the Michelin runners, finishing in third place.
Juan Pablo was to make a strong start from fifth on the grid to run fourth
at the start, right behind second-fastest qualified McLaren driver Kimi
Raikkonen.
 He
would move up to the third when the Finn ran wide on lap two. Montoya held
his position until the end despite pressure from McLaren star David
Coulthard, who passed Raikkonen during the first round of refuelling
stops.
Of the remaining Michelin finishers Ralf Schumacher finished fifth despite
a spin and Jaguar's Eddie Irvine was sixth, the Jaguar teams first
championship point since the opening race of the year in Australia. Toyota
drivers Mika Salo and Allan McNish were seventh and tenth respectively.
Pierre Dupasquier, Michelin
Motorsport Director, responded to several questions.
What conclusions have you drawn from today's race?
"We learned that the dry-weather tyres we brought this weekend were well
suited to Spa-Francorchamps. Both types were used in the race and they
produced a very similar level of performance. For instance McLaren drivers
David Coulthard and Kimi Raikkonen used different compounds and they
proved to be fairly evenly matched."
What was the main difference between your primary (A) and your option (B)
tyres?
"The interesting thing is that the tyres came from different families in
terms of compound and they provided an equally strong level of
performance, which was pretty much as we expected. Furthermore, we had no
problems with wear."
Pascal Vasselon, Formula One project Manager :
In the race we saw that Michelin's partner teams monopolised most of the
12 places?
"We were very happy with the way our tyres performed, and so were our
partner teams. Our tyres helped Jaguar to put in a very strong
points-scoring performance and Toyota had a good race too."
This weekend Michelin proved to be consistently competitive in both
qualifying and the race?
"Absolutely. Both our dry-weather compounds were well suited to Spa
throughout the weekend, no matter what fuel loads cars were running." |
