MONZA, Italy -- All is fair in love and war, the saying goes. And there's clearly a war going on right now between Ferrari, West McLaren Mercedes and Williams BMW as the three battle for the most prestigious title in motorsport: The World Championship.

And there's certainly no love lost between the various sides at the moment.

More specifically, there's no love lost between Ferrari vs. Williams and McLaren and Renault. Any doubts about that were quickly erased during a news conference before the Italian Grand Prix that involved McLaren director Ron Dennis, Williams technical director Patrick Head, Mild Seven Renault boss Flavio Briatore and Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn.

As reported elsewhere on ESPN/RPM.com, things got a bit feisty and acrimonious and paranoid during the news conference as the panel members occasionally interrupted each other to emphatically state their case.

The issue is tires. And it's been Ferrari (Bridgestone) against the Michelin teams of Williams, Renault and McLaren.

Ferrari, acting on photographic evidence supplied by Bridgestone, claimed that the tread width of Michelin's front tire exceeded the 270 mm (10.638 inches) maximum allowable tread width once the tire started to wear down.

In a war you destabilize your opponents in anyway you can. Ferrari claims there was no hidden agenda in bringing the tire issue to the attention of the FIA at this particular point of the season. But with just three races to go, Dennis claimed that suddenly having to change tire specifications has been very disruptive to McLaren's championship attack.

Michelin has produced a new front tire that has satisfied the FIA, apparently. The tire required a new mold but no drastic changes compared to the front tire previously in use. But, still, the Michelin teams had to devote a considerable amount of valuable time evaluating the new tires at the Monza test session leading up to the Italian Grand Prix.

"All other tires on which we had the ability to run were irrelevant to optimizing the car for this event because there was only a limited number of the new tires -- in fact, each team had two sets," Dennis said. "Therefore all the balance steps, all the things that we did on the other tires became immaterial when it was decided that we should run this slightly modified front tire."

"So it was very disruptive, and it also took away capacity within Michelin to give us two more slightly racier options in their range," Dennis added.

Did it have an influence on the World Championship?

"How much of a negative influence is very difficult to measure," Dennis said, "but (it was) most definitely a negative influence. I think that was part of the strategy and that is motor racing."

Just how disruptive this particular aspect of the tire war has been, and just how much of a performance difference the Michelin runners will encounter, will become apparent over the final three races of the year.

The drivers themselves haven't been letting the subject concern them. Kimi Raikkonen was taking a few days off when he read about the whole thing in a Finnish newspaper. He didn't even bother to telephone the McLaren team, as he was confident that McLaren and Michelin would sort things out.

Williams BMW's Juan Pablo Montoya wasn't worried, either.

"We changed tires and the FIA are happy with them and we are happy with them," he said. "We were very competitive on lap times (during the test). We will see this weekend how competitive we are."

The first indication of how competitive Montoya and Williams BMW and Michelin are came in qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix when Michael Schumacher's Bridgestone-shod Ferrari won the pole by 0.051 of a second over Montoya. It was his first pole since Austria back in May.

"The little bit of difference shows that the situation is very equal," Schumacher said, speaking of the overall car/engine/tire package.

How much did having a new front tire affect Montoya's lap time?

"Not a lot," he said. "I'm pretty happy. This is a track where we knew Ferrari would be close to us."

How much of a performance difference could there be in having a tire fractionally wider?

"This is difficult to say," Bridgestone's Hisao Suganuma said, "but I believe if the front end has better performance; maybe the car can carry more load on the front, which helps the rear, or under heavy braking, like you have here in the first chicane, it could give better braking performance. The balance of a F1 car is always very important, between front and rear, and if a wider front gives better balance overall, or less understeer, that will also help."

The Panasonic Toyota drivers, however, say they have found the slightly narrower front Michelin to be a better tire.

"On the tire situation some people were really used to winning races and now as they are getting their butts kicked, so they are trying to react in not the proper way," Cristiano da Matta said at the Monza test last week. "The bad news for them is that we tested a narrower tire here today and it was even better than the one we had before. So we have to thank them for the tip."

Which brings the whole thing around to the question of why Ferrari brought up the tire subject at this point of the season. Why after only measuring the tires when they were new has the FIA now said that the tires will also be measured after they have been used?

"Everybody knows that when we finish a race the FIA measures everything: weight, height, whatever," Briatore said. "Everyone knows the tire is fundamental in the race, so why, in two years, have the FIA only started measuring the tire when Ferrari talked to them?"

Brawn said that Ferrari didn't know about the tire issue until after the Hungarian Grand Prix just a few weeks ago.

"We weren't aware of the problem," Brawn said, "so any suggestion that we had timed it is inaccurate. Bridgestone is an extremely ethical company, and they were aware of this problem for some time and didn't raise it to our attention. They were troubled with how to deal with it, and they came to us after the race in Hungary and said, 'How can we deal with this problem?'"

"Let's put water on the fire," Brawn said. "I don't believe for a minute that Michelin were trying to bypass the regulations. They obviously had an interpretation of what they felt was acceptable for the tire. So I do accept that Michelin would not have done that knowingly, but we have lots of instances in the past where people have found to have a problem with their car, or whatever it is, not knowingly. It is still a problem even though there is no intent."

There certainly seems to be an undercurrent of animosity toward Ferrari, particularly about the timing. But what if the situation had been reversed? Surely McLaren and Williams would have said something if they suspected Ferrari of running something illegal.

"No doubt, the level of resentment in a similar situation if reciprocated would be as great," Dennis said.

This has indeed happened before. During the news conference Brawn talked about the "barge board" controversy in the second to last race of 1999 when the placement of Ferrari's barge boards (the aerodynamic deflectors on the side of the car) were suddenly questioned by FIA technical inspectors.

"I don't think to this day that McLaren have ever admitted that McLaren were the ones who told FIA about our barge boards," Brawn said.

There's a rumor going around that Ferrari may use a clause in the rulebook to protest the results of past races this season. Brawn refused to comment and said that was for the board of Ferrari to decide.

Head claimed that such a move would harm F1's image.

"It would be an extremely sad thing for F1 to be arguing about whether an interpretation that was clarified after Hungary should be applied retrospectively when these tires have been plain and visible, fully declared, fully approved and raced, I am told, for 38 races," Head said. "I think the patience of the general viewing public about F1 would be totally exhausted if F1 went through a casino of retrospective interpretation. I think it would be extremely sad, but anyway it won't be for me to judge."

Brawn declined to confirm the accuracy of quotes attributed to him earlier in the week saying that "it was an attempt by Michelin to circumnavigate the regulations. It is now clear that a large number of the Michelin teams have been running illegal tires for a considerable amount of time."

"I don't want to go back over those comments," he said. "It was important to us that we felt we were competing on a level playing field."

Head pointed out that the FIA has never used the word "illegal" when talking about the front tires Michelin used up until now.

"You've got to remember these words of cheating and illegal have not been applied by the FIA," Head said. "The FIA have not applied any words suggesting that any tires that have been run have been illegal. All the FIA did was send out a fax to inform people how they would be interpreting the rule in the future. They have just clarified how they are going to measure, or how they are going to interpret (rule article 77c) from this Grand Prix onwards."

And there lies the crux of this whole issue. Given the way the FIA measured tires before the Hungarian Grand Prix, Michelin's front tires were legal in that context. Michelin's new tire conforms to the new way the FIA will now measure tires.

So let the war continue -- but out on the track, not between the lines of the rulebook and in the news conference rooms.

Dan Knutson covers Formula One for National Speed Sport News and ESPN.com.