Formula One™ tyre suppliers Michelin may have had four cars in the top six at Imola on Sunday, but motorsport director Pierre Dupasquier described the result as a "small consolation" after Bridgestone runners Ferrari took a dominant one-two victory in the San Marino Grand Prix.

Williams were the strongest of the Michelin-shod teams with Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya finishing third and fourth, but neither they nor the Renault of Jenson Button in fifth or the McLaren of David Coulthard in sixth were able to trouble the Ferraris out front.

In a press release Dupasquier admitted he was unable to find reasons for Ferrari's advantage. "At the moment I am at a loss to explain," he said. "All our cars performed exactly as we expected them too - it's just that the two Ferraris ahead found a lot of extra speed from somewhere."

Dupasquier said everyone at Michelin would now apply their efforts to closing the gap on rivals Bridgestone ahead of the next round of the FIA Formula One World Championship™ in Spain in two weeks time

"Before we can react we have to work out what went wrong," he said. "We will work flat out to get to the root of this. We have to analyse everything in detail before we can be sure what caused our problems. From what we saw in qualifying we were expecting to be very competitive."

For Jenson Button Sunday's result was his third successive point-scoring finish and Dupasquier said Renault's improved form was one of the few positives to be taken from Imola.

"I was encouraged by Button's performance with Renault," he said. "The team is becoming very consistent and increasingly he has shown that he knows how to nurse a car to the finish in the points.

Asked for his conclusions on Michelin's overall performance in San Marino, Dupasquier said: "The most positive outcome of a result like this is that it will motivate the whole team and heighten our determination to do much better next time. We have to push harder to get them (our teams) to the front of the top six."