Brawn dubious about Michelin

Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn thinks the way teams running Michelins prepare their tyres for races is not in line with regulations. Teams are allowed three sets of tyres for Friday practice so a certain amount of on track running can be done, then these tyres are discarded: previously all available tyres were conserved for the race. Teams using Michelin tyres now spend a lot of Friday practices 'scrubbing' race tyres and the other three sets remain unused.

"The Michelin runners are running their race tyres on a Friday, so the three sets which are discarded become almost irrelevant," said Brawn. "Instead they use four or more sets because they're starting to scrub their race tyres. We're not completely happy to see our competitors race on tyres that are 15-20 laps old. By wearing the tyres down, they stabilise them and you could argue that's against the spirit of the regulations. But I guess it's a question of how far it goes."

Michelin have attracted criticism since their return to F1, notably on what constitutes legal wear on tyres. Since slick tyres were phased out there has been controversy when some cars have worn down their grooved tyres in a race to what could be arguably described as slicks. Michelin were also under the spotlight over plans to use new asymmetrical grooves on their tyres for the season opener in Australia. They chose not to use them after questions were asked about the legality of them by the FIA and rival tyre supplier Bridgestone.