With Ferrari indicating that they may protest the results of previous races where Michelin supplied teams had won Michelin has now come out fighting indicating that they have concerns regarding Bridgestone tyres..

There major concern is the issue of using different compounds on the front and rear. This concern was first expressed at the Monaco Grand Prix but nothing further was done by the sports governing body the FIA.

But Michelin engineers expressed their concern after the teams had tested at the Monza circuit prior to the Italian Grand Prix. The most noticeable feature of the Bridgestone tyres at this test was that they were blistering only on the front and not on the rear.

One Michelin engineer was quoted as saying in regard to the sight of seeing blistering on the front tyres and not the rears, taking into account the fact that the rears are running 20 degrees hotter than the fronts. He said: "This is technically very strange. So they start to blister first at the rear if at all."

As a result of this the FIA decided to take one set of tyres from a Ferrari and one from a Williams for testing. The FIA was to take one left front and one right rear from each team. The results of these tests should be published later this week.

A Bridgestone spokesman admitted, when questioned regarding the FIA's inspection of their tyres, said: 'It is true that [the FIA] is looking at a set of our tyres."

But the WilliamsF1 team has take issue with the timing of the inspection and with the fact that the FIA took away the wrong tyres. WilliamsF1 feel that the test should have been done after the race at Monza and that they should have selected a left front and a left rear instead of crossing over with the left front and the right rear.

The issue of the lack of conformity of the Bridgestone tyres is certainly just another round in what is turning out to be a very heated affair between the two tyre manufacturers.