France: Michelin inspired to do better

By Michelin Sport
July 16 2006

Astute tactics helped Fernando Alonso to split Ferrari drivers Michael Schumacher and Felipe Massa in today's French Grand Prix at Magny-Cours.

Starting third on the grid, the Spaniard tried to dive ahead of Massa at the first turn but the Brazilian held firm and Alonso was obliged to sit behind him throughout the race's opening stint.

While Schumacher established a secure lead, Renault opted to put Alonso on a two-stop strategy – rather than the Ferrari drivers' three – and the Spaniard finally claimed second place when Massa pitted for the final time. Alonso eventually finished 10.131s behind Schumacher – but he remains 17 points clear of the German in the title race. Alonso has only once finished outside the top two in this season's 11 races. In the championship for constructors, meanwhile, Renault remains 21 points clear of Ferrari.

The race passed off largely without incident. Ralf Schumacher recovered from a slow first pit stop to finish fourth, just ahead of Kimi Raikkonen. The Finn managed to get of the German during the middle sector of the race, but they swapped places again after the final stops. Giancarlo Fisichella, Pedro de la Rosa and Nick Heidfeld also scored points on Michelin tyres. De la Rosa was making his first race start since the 2005 Bahraini GP: he has been recruited to replace Juan Pablo Montoya, who is currently on sabbatical after announcing that he was going to switch to the US-based NASCAR Nextel Cup in 2007.

All but two Michelin drivers lasted the distance. David Coulthard just missed out on a third straight points finish. He finished ninth, 3.2s behind Heidfeld. Scott Speed was 10th, one of the best F1 results of his fledgling career, while Jacques Villeneuve, Christian Klien and Vitantonio Liuzzi finished 11th, 12th and 13th. Liuzzi had to start the race from the back of the grid after making an unscheduled engine change.

Honda team-mates Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button were the only Michelin casualties. Both pulled off with engine-related problems.

Nick Shorrock
Formula One Director
Michelin

"It is obviously disappointing that we weren't able to convert our consistency into another race victory, but results like this simply inspire us to do better next time.

"We accept that we need to increase our performance and will be evaluating a number of ideas this week. We brought 10 different products to this race and used six of them today. We tried some very aggressive 'option' tyres earlier in the weekend, but by general consensus they might have suffered over a full race distance because of the extremely high track temperatures. That would clearly have been a faster tyre over one lap and it gives us a baseline on which to work for the forthcoming races.

"Our partners are still leading both world championships – and there will be no let-up as we strive to give all of them a tyre capable of winning the German Grand Prix later this month."