![]() ![]() It didn't appear that we had more downforce than anybody else." It was difficult for Michelin to be absolutely sure, but there was a belief that the natural frequency of the Toyota chassis and suspension design probably accentuated this wave, and therefore we were more vulnerable. If you have a vertical load at the same time with that frequency, the tyre is very fragile, because of this harmonic wave. And it was a question of the frequency of that wave relative to the design of the tyre – it's like those old suspension bridges when the wind blows, and the frequency is right, and they just fall apart. Howett: "There was a wave created in the sidewall as you go around the banking. They wanted to verify that, and they were running tests overnight."Ĭome the following morning the news from Michelin's Clermont-Ferrand base was not positive. They wanted to see if it was a batch issue, but I think even at that time they were fairly sure that those tyres hadn't been produced from the same moulds or in the same batch. Michelin called a meeting, and they said we've got to work overnight to understand it. So an hour or so after FP2 it became obvious that there was an issue with the tyre. Howett: "One of the Michelin guys came along and said they had identified similar situation to Jarno's in three or four other teams. The story took a different direction when it emerged that tyres on other cars were starting to show danger signs. So we knew we had a problem, and it was, 'Why is it us?' First of all Michelin thought we were running under inflated pressures, but there was no issue there, we weren't running even close to low pressure. I think we still ran a bit in that session, and when Jarno came in there were what looked like vertical cuts in the sidewall of the rear left. They were replaying pictures of the incident, and it looked like the left rear tyre had gone down. John Howett (Team principal, Toyota): "Ralf's was a fairly big shunt, and we were all relieved that he got out of the car. That attracted little attention, and it was only when Ralf Schumacher crashed heavily in FP2 when exiting Turn 13 – the banked right-hander onto the pit straight – that alarm bells started to sound. ![]() The saga began on Friday morning when Toyota third driver Ricardo Zonta spun in the infield after his left rear Michelin went down.
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