San Marino preview quotes: Michelin

"Our excellent results have been the fruit of dedicated work carried out by Michelin's research and development teams and our F1 partners, factors that have enabled us to build on 2005's spectacular success and make significant progress.

"The analysis of data received from our partner teams is central to our work and allows us to monitor a wide range of elements and, subsequently, to determine future development trends. We have thus been able to evolve new casings and compounds while enhancing the way in which our partners use them."

"We are now looking forward to Formula One's European return at Imola, a circuit rich in both tradition and history. The tyres we're bringing to this race need to be able to cope with fierce braking and hard acceleration on a track whose surface varies at almost every bend.

"In addition, drivers tend to take an aggressive approach here - they make extensive use of the kerbs because that is the key to a quick lap time.

"In last year's corresponding fixture we identified a number of areas that needed to be developed in order to improve our future performance. The development programme in 2006 has taken this into account and our recent tests have been encouraging.

"We have subsequently selected a range of tyres featuring new compounds in order to respond to the challenges we identified one year ago.

"It is conceivable that the first European race of the campaign will be rain-affected - but that holds no fears for us because we saw the effectiveness of our latest intermediate tyres during the free practice sessions in Australia.

"Our partners' wet-weather lap times in Melbourne gave us particular cause for satisfaction and underlined just how much progress we have made. Previously, we had only been able to evaluate these tyres during our winter test programme, when circumstances are less representative.

"Michelin might have dominated the first three races of the season, but we appreciate that the opposition remains very strong. Each Grand Prix represents a whole new challenge. There are no guarantees that the early-season hierarchy will remain settled and we remain focused on building up a successful world title campaign.

"Moreover, intense competition is exactly what Michelin thrives on - as far as we are concerned it represents motorsport's very essence. Fierce rivalry of this kind enables Michelin to fine-tune its products and demonstrate their true worth."