Q&A: Pierre Dupasquier.

Michelin Motorsport director - Pierre Dupasquier - talks about Sunday's US Grand Prix; the performance of the Michelin tyres and a lot, lot more:

Q:
David Coulthard was Michelin's best-placed driver, in third place, and you had three cars in the top six. You might not have won but you look pretty upbeat about the result...

Pierre Dupasquier:
Absolutely - I am really pleased with the way our tyres have performed this weekend. I would go so far as to say that this was our strongest performance of the year, even though we didn't win. Our quickest four cars were all slowed a little by various factors. David Coulthard and Kimi Raikkonen were managing their engine and the two Williams-BMWs were slowed by their collision on lap two. The important thing is that our tyres were quick and consistent on a one stop strategy and showed no signs of serious wear, what was definitely not the case for our rival even on two stops strategies. In many ways this has been a very successful days for us.

Q:
All Michelin's drivers opted to run with your harder, primary (A) tyre. Is there anything you could
have done to extract even more performance this weekend?

PD:
We only completed a limited amount of running with this compound before the United States Grand Prix. I believe we are clearly working in the right direction and need only a little bit of fine-tuning to take the next step forward.

Q:
Do you have any particular developments in mind for the final race of the season in Japan?

PD:
We will begin working on that immediately. We have not finalised our dry-weather compounds for Suzuka yet, but it's safe to say we will be relying on tyres from the same family that has proved to be so effective during the past few grands prix.