Bridgestone’s soft tyre carried Giancarlo Fisichella to Force India’s first ever pole position for tomorrow’s Belgian Grand Prix at Spa Francorchamps.

Fisichella completed a 1min 46.308secs lap for his first pole since the Malaysian Grand Prix in 2006 and tomorrow will see an all Italian front row after Jarno Trulli (Panasonic Toyota Racing) qualified second.

BMW Sauber F1 Team driver Nick Heidfeld used Bridgestone’s medium tyre in the morning practice session to go fastest. Weather conditions were quite variable today and the performances of the Bridgestone medium and soft compounds were very close.

Q&A with Hirohide Hamashima - Bridgestone Director of Motorsport Tyre Development

What was significant about today’s running?
“Today was fascinating from a tyre perspective and it was also a wonderful day for Force India and Giancarlo Fisichella for their pole position. Choosing between the two tyres here has been very temperature dependent, making it difficult for teams to decide which to use. This was particularly true in qualifying, as track temperature changed considerably. The soft compound worked very well with the lighter fuel loads of Q1 and Q2, however the heavier cars of Q3 tended towards the medium tyre.”

What are the tyre strategy considerations for tomorrow’s race?
“The tyres are very close together on ultimate lap time, with the soft giving better grip, but the medium giving better stability. Just like Friday, we could not find any graining today and this means that both compounds are working well. Because of the close performance of the tyres we believe there will be a wide range of strategy possibilities for tomorrow’s race, and we will be interested to see what happens.”

Image (c) Bridgestone Corporation