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Michelin boss says full wet is no solution

Michelin motorsport director Pierre Dupasquier says that a full wet tyre would make little difference to the problem of running a modern Grand Prix car in heavy rain, after many insiders blamed the use of intermediate tyres for the carnage in the Brazilian Grand Prix

Eight cars crashed out of the race due to rain and drivers threatened to boycott Friday qualifying when heavy rain hit the circuit. These events led many teams and drivers to call for a return to a two wet tyre rule, or else one tyre with a minimum tread depth to prevent tyre companies bringing what are effectively intermediate tyres to a race.

But Dupasquier denies this would have made a difference. "No tyre as far as I know can make a safe race at speeds of nearly 200mph, no way," he said. "You just lose the car at 50mph with 2cms of water on the track. Experience tells me that, I'm not inventing anything. We tried very narrow tyres a long time ago when we first came into F1 but it doesn't work. You touch the pedal and you lose it."

Asked whether cars on full wets could have successfully negotiated Turn 3 at Interlagos, where six cars crashed in the race, Dupasquier thought not.

"It will change the speed at which you lose the car by maybe 3-5mph, that's all," he said.

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