the bridgestone tyres used by schumacher were inferior to the michelin tyres used by the renault, bar and williams teams at the monaco weekend. in the weeks before the monaco race bridgestone had worked with the ferrari team on tyres that could perform a fast single lap during qualifying and the opening laps of the race. schumacher had set his fast practice times on soft tyres, but after his tyres had struggled on a slippery track, schumacher and the other bridgestone teams returned to hard tyres.