Bridgestone Review Tyres Performance After First Day in Singapore
Bridgestone’s super soft tyres proved to be the fastest rubber for the first practice sessions of the Singapore Grand Prix today where drivers tackled the slippery and dusty street course.
Sebastian Vettel topped the timesheets with 1 min 48.650secs on super soft tyres for Red Bull in the second session as lap times dropped rapidly with the track surface improvement during the course of the hot and humid evening.
However, Rubens Barrichello had been quickest in the first practice session with a 1min 50.179secs lap for Brawn GP on soft tyres at the marina Bay street course in Sinapore.
Hirohide Hamashima, director of motorsport tyre development for Bridgestone analysed the results of today’s running.
He said: “Just like last year we saw the track start very slippery. This was due to a dusty surface and no rubber laid down.
“We saw a few drivers get caught out by these conditions; however the surface improved a lot during the evening.
“The lap times today were around three seconds slower than last year, and I think the reason for this is mainly due to the circuit revisions which have re-profiled turn 1 and turn 10, making them tighter and slower.”
He added: “Lap times decreased considerably during the evening and we think that this will continue tomorrow.
“The constantly evolving surface makes it difficult for teams to find the perfect set-up which is a good challenge for them and could provide some interesting results tomorrow.
“The super soft is quicker than the soft however we do not have sufficient data yet to know the exact difference.
“Both compounds showed good appearance and we didn’t see any big issues with graining.
“We could see rear degradation on both, but this is likely to be due to the slippery conditions and this will improve as the track evolves.”
Alex Kapadia, Operations Team
Number: Z8037079
Reg: NKF419
