Bridgestone announce tyre allocations for next four races

Bridgestone, the Official Tyre Supplier to the FIA Formula One World Championship, is pleased to announce the compound allocations of Potenza tyres for a further four rounds of the 2009 FIA Formula One World Championship.

For the four races from the Hungarian Grand Prix to the Italian Grand Prix Bridgestone will depart from its concept of leaving a gap in rubber stiffness between the two allocated tyres for each race, meaning that consecutive compound pairings are allocated for each of these races. Bridgestone’s intermediate and wet tyres will continue to be brought to all races.

Both allocations of dry tyres have to be used in each race, unless the intermediate or wet tyres are used, meaning that competitors need to find the best compromise to utilise the potential of both tyres. The means of distinguishing between the two compounds on event is by green bands painted on the edges of the tyre sidewalls of the softer tyres at a race. Green is the colour in order to show Bridgestone’s support of the FIA’s Make Cars Green campaign.

Hirohide Hamashima, Bridgestone Director of Motorsport Tyre Development, says: “We have made the change to the tyre allocation concept based on the data we have collected from races so far this year combined with our knowledge of the tracks we visit for these races. The cars of 2009 are very different to those used last year so we have learnt a lot so far this year, and they do use their tyres differently from before.

"Hungary is a circuit where the characteristics demand our softest tyres. This is also true for street courses, and we used the softest allocation earlier in the year at Monaco, and will again in Valencia. In Spa the weather temperatures can be quite cool, so the hard compound could have caused difficulties, and the super soft would have been too soft for this track, so that means the allocation of medium and soft is obvious. In Monza the hard compound would have given too big a difference between it and the soft, so we will bring the soft and the medium.”