Exclusive: Q&A with Michelin's Pierre Dupasquier

BG: Do you already have an indication what happened in today's race, with the multiple tyre explosions?

Pierre Dupasquier: "Not more than you. We just witnessed that three times a rear right [tyre] failed, and it's not the most loaded tyre - it's a tyre that has an easy life. We have checked as usual all the tyres, one by one, but it's always the rear right, which is definitely a sign that something wrong happened."

BG: In Indy we also saw tyre explosions, due to debris. Could today have been due to similar circumstances?

Dupasquier: "No, in Indy it was clearly because of debris. But here, three times the same tyre makes it statistically improbable that it's because of debris - debris would have affected any of the four tyres. So this is strange, and we need to investigate this on the circuit.

"We saw this in the past: in a right hand turn, for example, if you put the right of the car on the kerb, right behind the kerb, then when you come back [to the track] the right side wall - the internal side wall of the tyre hits part of the kerb that could be very sharp. That's an example of something that happened in the past.

"Because it was always the rear right tyre today, this must be something specific to the position. And if it appears that we have to take care of a specific issue - we will. We will add 200 grams or 400 grams of extra rubber to that side wall, or something like that."

BG: The fact that this happened in the race and not in previous sessions this weekend perhaps could suggest that this is somehow related to tyre wear as well?

Dupasquier: "No, no. It happened on different stages of the stint - in Jenson Button's case, for example, the tyre was almost new, it was 10 laps old. But what could be different during the race is the racing line the guys take - it could be just slightly different."

BG: Okay, so how do you investigate such a thing?

Dupasquier: "We will look at the tyres - but we will not find anything on them, I can already tell you. But what we will do is walk over the track, metre by metre, maybe even with a driver. And we will look at the track itself to see if we can find clues there."

BG: In fact, Button mentioned he felt like he ran over a bump before his tyre explosion

Dupasquier: "Those things happen. something sticking on the track - we find many things like that all the time. In Dallas many years ago we found a small piece of steel that was between two road blocks, and Rene Arnoux passed over it and baam - his tyre exploded.

"So that's really the most important thing for us to do: to scan the track and look for clues."