Ferrari hits back at tyre rumours

It had been suggested that Ferrari may have been using a special tyre-softening compound, when the rules ban any kind of special tyre treatments.

"I don't know if there's enough substance in the printed stories to take legal action," Brawn said in Montreal. "Our suspicion of where they came from was refuted today because Pierre Dupasquier [Michelin's competition director] made a statement that he didn't believe we were doing it. So it's obviously not come from Michelin. If we established that it was an individual putting those stories about, we'd have to have a stern word with them - at least."

Brawn said that he suspected anti Ferrari sentiment often had its roots in other people trying to cover their own inadequacies.

"There are people who look for easy reasons and there are no easy reasons for the success of Ferrari," he said. "It's been achieved with a group of people who've put a massive effort into getting there. People want to cover their own backsides because they've got to go back to their board of directors and explain why they're not winning races. And it's an easy excuse to use isn't it - we're not winning because they're doing something they shouldn't be."

Speaking specifically about the tyre-softening accusations, he added: "I never like to reverse the question, but why would we want to do that? We've got a fantastic car, great tyres, and the best driver. Excuse my French but we're not going to f**k around with stuff like that. First of all, it's illegal, so we wouldn't do it. Secondly, from what I understand it's quite a protracted process talking to the people I know who are involved in karting. They warp the tyres in sheeting and all sorts of things. It's not something you could do discreetly. We're saying we're not doing it, Michelin are saying we're not doing it, and the FIA is saying we're not doing it..."

He concluded: "It brings F1 into disrepute and it does frustrate me. It used to be traction control. That was the great unproveable. When that myth was exploded, the new myth is special tyres."

When asked if Bridgestone was using a special spray to soften its tyres, a spokesman for the Japanese company laughed: "The only spray we use is our perfume! We have no special spray for the tyres."

At Nurburgring a fortnight ago, there was also a paddock whisper that Michael Schumacher, having had a problem on the opening day, may have tried different compound tyres on Saturday morning, after the deadline for a team to make its race tyre selection. An exasperated Brawn refuted that, too.

"Every tyre has an individual moulded number on it and it's cross- referenced with the bar code," he explained. "So the FIA have the bar code and the cross reference moulded number on the tyre. If we were trying to play around with bar codes you'd have to have duplicate numbers and every tyre duplicated back in the garage. Our bar code is vulcanised into the tyre so you can't remove it. Maybe if we had a bit more exciting racing then these stories would go away."