Tyre suppliers about friday practice

Michelin-McLaren test driver Pedro de la Rosa clocked the fastest time on the opening day of the seasons final world championship Grand Prix at the Shanghai International Circuit. Michelin and rival Bridgestone eye back on the practice sessions of today.

Pierre Dupasquier, Michelin Motorsport Director “Although our engineers gathered plenty of data when we first raced on this track in 2004, the rules governing tyres and aerodynamics have changed significantly since then so we have had to factor in a new range of parameters.There hasn’t been a great deal of difference between our ‘prime’ and ‘option’ compounds today, but that is a by-product of the unexpectedly cool track temperatures. Their individual performance characteristics should be amplified in the warmer conditions we expect tomorrow – and that’s something our engineers will have to bear in mind when finalising compounds this evening. From what we have seen so far, however, it is likely that both will be used in the race. As for the damaged right-rear tyre on Christian Klien’s Red Bull, it is clear that he ran over something sharp and quite large. There was a significant hole in the tread surface – and it was far too big to have been caused by a shard of carbon.”

Hisao Suganuma, Bridgestone Motorsport Technical Manager "As expected the track was green this morning which meant we saw a lot of front tyre graining. We also saw a few raindrops in the first free practice but fortunately it stayed dry. As a result, however, some of the teams tried both their tyre specifications in the first session in case it rained in the second session.As it happened, the weather remained stable and all the Bridgestone teams ran both their tyre specs in the second session. Track conditions had also improved by this time and we managed to get some good indications of our tyre performance for the weekend ahead. We shall now check the wear rates and heat durability of the tyres before making our final recommendations to the teams. Looking at Rubens Barrichello’s lap times I am confident we shall be competitive here.”