USA: Michelin: We screwed up

By Phil Huff
June 20 2005

Michelin's Motorsport Director, Pierre Dupasquier, spoke about the tyre fiasco at Indianapolis, revealing that the French manufacturer had 'screwed up'.

Speaking to Autosport-Atlas, Dupasquier explained why Michelin weren't able to provide a tyre suitable for the Indianapolis circuit.

"We screwed up," Dupasquier told Autosport.

With suspicion that Michelin may have been pushing the performance envelope slightly too far, Dupasquier was quick to dispel that theory. "No, no, no. It's nothing to do with that. On the contrary, since we have to last for the entire race, we kept huge margins."

Despite the widespread condemnation following the event in the United States, Dupasquier feels that Michelin have come out of the situation well, commenting "Anything we heard so far was more on the side of 'congratulations for the responsibility, you made the right decision' and so on.

"We are sorry about it, we regret what happened. We had no choice but assuming responsibility and taking no chance with the race and with the drivers."