Bridgestone pleased with performance of extreme tyres in Germany
Bridgestone were delighted with the performance of their extreme allocation tyres during the German Grand Prix today.
The decision to use the super-soft and hard tyres introduced another element of excitement to the race - which ended in a second 1-2 win for Ferrari - with tyre strategy playing an important role for the Formula One teams.
Hirohide Hamashima, director of motorsport tyre development for Bridgestone, said: “Both compounds worked better than we expected. The super soft lasted very well. A good example of this was Jenson Button who was to gain position by staying on the super soft for his first stint longer than the other front runners.
“The hard compound did take longer to warm-up than we usually see with the prime tyre, and we saw evidence of this in the race with locked brakes, less grip in the corners and lower traction before it was in its correct temperature operating range.
“I believe that today was a good illustration of the strength of our development engineers in Japan.
“These tyres were designed before the start of the season, and we have many changes such as the narrower front tyres, and no more refuelling meaning heavier cars. Despite this, our engineers have produced tyres capable of working well with this season’s cars, even when we try an extreme allocation as we did here.”
Alex Kapadia, Operations Team
Number: Z8037079
Reg: NKF419
