Reading: F1 Tyres Confirmed to Spice Up Season

By Alex Kapadia

Bridgestone has ended months of speculation and revealed the final details of its tyres for the eagerly-awaited Grand Prix season.

F1’s sole tyres supplier will spice up the racing by introducing a bigger difference between the two designated rubber compounds that will be used in each race.

And it will use green painted markings so that spectators can visually differentiate between the two types of tyres selected for each Grand Prix.

Bridgestone had been asked by the FIA to widen the differential in the hope that it will encourage greater tactical variety and, due to differences in grip and wear rates, facilitate overtaking.

Now instead of having two compounds with relatively close grip levels and durability (for example, soft and medium), the gap in characteristics has been widened (for example, soft and hard).

The Japanese tyre manufacturer also ended speculation about how it would visually distinguish the different tyres.  The answer is green painted markings, as opposed to the white stripe method used on the grooved tyres over the past 11 years.

Green is also in keeping with Bridgestone’s commitment to FIA’s Make Cars Green campaign.

Hirohide Hamashima, Bridgestones director of motorsport tyre development, said: ‘We hope that the change in allocations gives competitors a good challenge and the fans entertaining racing.’

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 28th, 2009 at 2:39 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.