Michael already happy with Bridgestone

Williams F1's Technical Director Sam Michael says he has already seen enough of Bridgestone to give him confidence the tyre manufacturer can help push the team forwards when they re-establish their relationship for 2006.

Williams will switch to Bridgestone for next season and Michael visited the Bridgestone headquarters in Japan ahead of the team's first test in November. The meeting justified to Michael the team's reasons for choosing the Japanese manufacturer.

Sam Michael, Technical Director "This will be a new challenge but everything I have seen of Bridgestone so far has impressed me. They look very switched on, they have a very structured plan of how they are going to get back to where they are and they are not sitting around finger pointing, that is the encouraging thing."

Bridgestone have become used to sitting on top of the pile in Formula One having won every World Championship, both Drivers' and Constructors', since the year 1998, but were finally beaten to victory this year.

"They are into sorting it out and getting back to winning. I have been really, really impressed with what I have seen so far in terms of their plan to return themselves to the front. Within two or three meetings you can see exactly why they have won the last five world championships. They might have lost this year, but you can see exactly why they are going to return to the front."

One of the big things will be an increase in the number of teams that can test tyres for Bridgestone, which will not only increase the total mileage but will also give a comparison for all the Bridgestone teams.

"They have a solid plan in terms of testing information and what they have talked to me about technically, what they are going to work on in the winter, makes me think they are going to get it sorted."

Williams have already had some important assistance from Bridgestone on the development of their new FW28, which will be powered by Cosworth next season and run, of course, on Bridgestone tyres.
The advance planning required to design the car for 2006, the concepts for which began even before the middle of the 2005 season, meant it was vital for Williams to know a little about the Bridgestone tyres before bolting them on their car.

"I think the main thing to develop next year is always casings and compounds, to make sure you have the best options on the car that you can have and that is a matter of putting in place test plans and getting on with it. There are a three or four areas they have worked directly with us already getting ready for next year and I think we will end up with a very good product because of that. From what they have told us about their tyres we know enough to make design decisions already on suspension, weight distribution, aerodynamics and so on to allow for that."

The true test will come in November, when Williams will finally hit the track on Bridgestone tyres, and Michael is looking forward to a productive build-up to Christmas before unveiling their new car early next year.

"All the way through November and December we will be in Spain testing with Bridgestone, doing tyre testing but also we have a new gearbox and engine package, a hell of a lot of stuff. It is not ideal, in an ideal world you would continue running a B-spec car or something that you could do tyre testing on but we don't have that, we will have finished our engine situation with BMW and that is what we have got. It won't be boring, that's for sure, and I can see November and December being a bit of a groundhog day, then our new car will be out in February and we want to try to give ourselves the best preparation we can."