Ralf Clears Michelin of Blame for Poor Race Pace

Ralf Schumacher cleared French tyre manufacturer Michelin of blame for the Williams team's poor performance at the European Grand Prix on Sunday.

The Grove-based squad had completed the first front row lockout of the year, with Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya finishing ahead of Schumacher in Saturday's qualifying. But during today's race, both drivers struggled to match the pace of their Ferrari and McLaren rivals.

Schumacher was the only Williams to cross the finish line, but in a disappointing fourth place. The German claimed his car was very hard to drive, but said their Michelin tyres were not to blame.

"My car was incredibly difficult to drive as we had some tyre problems from early in the race," said Schumacher, now alone in second place in the Championship. "I must say though that this doesn't depend on Michelin, but on us getting the car right for the tyres."

Sam Michael, Williams' chief engineer added: "We had a poor performance today. We had a similar problem to the Monaco race where we had extreme wear on the rear tyres of both cars. We had to pull Ralf's pit-stop forward by a long way but Juan didn't make it.

"Unfortunately he took David Coulthard off and he apologised. We have a lot of work to do and it's clear where our problem lies."