irohide Hamashima - Bridgestone Director of Motorsport Tyre Development

What was significant about today’s running?

“Today we saw a further improvement from the track, even though we did lose almost half an hour of running in the morning practice session. There was a good improvement in tyre performance from both tyres related to the track improvement so we have good confidence for tomorrow. To see a KERS car on pole makes things interesting, as it is difficult to imagine a non-KERS car getting ahead at the start.”

What are the tyre strategy considerations for tomorrow’s race?

“The super soft tyre is around 0.3-0.4 seconds faster than the soft tyre, however it is more susceptible to the lateral graining that we see here. The track improvement today however means that the super soft looks better than it did yesterday for its race duties, so actual strategy choices tomorrow will be interesting. To assist us with data we will analyse the strategies in today’s GP2 Series race too. Looking at today’s skies, I do not think we will have need of Bridgestone’s intermediate and wet tyres for the race.

Image (c) Bridgestone Corporation

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