Dupasquier praises 'flat out beauty' of MotoGP.

Michelin motorsport director Pierre Dupasquier has praised the 'beauty' of a 'flat out' MotoGP race in which, unlike other major motorsport disciplines, the action only takes place on the racetrack and the winner is decided by the strongest rider/bike/tyre package.

"One of the beauties of MotoGP is that it is maybe the last top-level Motorsport formula, with a high level of technical development covering all aspects of the machinery, in which you have a straightforward, flat out race," he explained.

"You go to the grid with the best package you have, then you race for 40 or 50 minutes and see where you end up. That's the beauty of it - the result reflects the quality of your rider/bike/tyre package, not the various other factors that decide the outcome in some other disciplines," added Pierre, whose company are

As well as MotoGP, Michelin are involved in all disciplines of world championship motorsport - including Rallying and Formula One - but this weekend all eyes in the company will be on the premier two-wheeled championship as it heads to Michelin's home event; the French Grand Prix at Le Mans.

Michelin's success on home tarmac - as in winning the motorcycle world championship - has been awesomely impressive, with victory in all but seven of the last 31 French GPs, running right back to the days when the French round was staged around the daunting Charade street circuit, just a few kilometres from the front door of Michelin's Clermont-Ferrand HQ.

Ironically, Michelin never won the premier-class on its own doorstep, if only because the company was taking its first tentative steps into GPs when the circuit was deemed too dangerous for GP racing, but Dupasquier remembers attending French GPs at Charade as a schoolboy and later while leading Michelin's first forays into GP racing.

"I remember watching Geoff Duke and John Surtees, dreaming about getting involved in racing, but only dreaming, with no real hope of it happening," he said. "Instead I use to ride everywhere on my bike, to Finland, to Turkey, to Dakar. I loved riding, I crashed many times trying to go fast but I never thought I'd get involved in racing."

The 67-year-old first joined Michelin in the early 60s and became fully involved in the company's race efforts in '73, just before Charade was struck from the GP calendar.

"It was an absolutely marvellous circuit, like a mini Nurburging," he recalled. "It was in the hills, so it was uphill, downhill, blind crests, amazing, but also very dangerous.

"I remember the last few GPs there, giving our new PZ2 tyres to Christian Bourgeois, who was one of the first riders to start going really fast with our tyres.

"The PZ was just a road tyre, the PZ2 was the same tyre with a softer compound for racing. But these were the tyres that started us on the road to the success that we enjoy today," he concluded.

Michelin have won all three 2005 MotoGP races heading into this weekend's event.