Michelin questions FIA's motivation

On the back of the return of tyre changes next year, Michelin's CEO Edouard Michelin has said that he does not understand why the FIA has chosen to make expensive modifications to the rules - and believes some teams only voted for the new regulations because they will give them an advantage.

"The position of the FIA changes depending on the situations, and reflects an obvious lack of transparency regarding the reasons for some choices," Michelin told Gazzetta dello Sport.

"After having supported a decrease of costs, the new decision by the federation increases them by 15 percent: more development, more testing and more logistics.

"If some teams have voted in favour of this new regulation, then they've probably noticed some advantages, especially the teams fitted with our competitor's tyres, which have never adapted to the conditions in 2005."

Michelin also re-iterated his company's stance that it believes the switch to a single-tyre supplier is not in the best interests of F1.

"We've had an exceptional year," he explained. "Results improve the image of the company as they are a tremendous test for research, but with a single supplier F1 will partly lose its high technology.

"We've always been against a lack of competition among tyre manufacturers. To ban competition is the first step towards a single engine and a single bodywork, that is progressively transforming current races into promotional races."