Bridgestone's Sunday update - Spain

F1 Grand Prix, GP Spain, Circuit de Catalunya

Mark Webber (Red Bull Racing) has scored his first win of the season after finishing first in the Spanish Grand Prix by 24 seconds from home hero, Fernando Alonso (Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro). Webber led from start to finish using a soft-hard Bridgestone tyre strategy, the same as Alonso. Vettel made two pit stops, using a soft-hard-soft to finish third.

Vodafone McLaren Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton set the race’s fastest lap, a 1min 24.357secs, using the hard tyre on lap 59.

Hiroshi Yasukawa – Director of Bridgestone Motorsport, says “Congratulations to Mark Webber for his first win of the year to open the European season in front of a superb crowd here in Spain. For Fernando Alonso this was also a great day, to be on the podium in his first Spanish Grand Prix driving for Ferrari. From Bridgestone’s perspective this has been a very strong weekend. We hosted guests from the USA and Brazil as well as many from our European markets which has illustrated the importance of Formula One as a business tool. Our sales companies continue to support our Formula One activities, showing the significance of this to our business. We are proud to have the support of all of the teams in this fantastic sport and now look forward to heading straight to Monaco for what is likely to be another fabulous race meeting.”

Hirohide Hamashima - Bridgestone Director of Motorsport Tyre Development, says “Today was an interesting race where pit stop timing was crucial. This was illustrated by both Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher gaining positions through their choices. Mark Webber’s performance was exceptional and Red Bull had a very good set-up with both compounds of tyre here. The hard and the soft compounds worked well today and the track condition continued to improve as there was no rain last night, unlike on Friday night. The hard compound was very consistent once it was warmed up and was used for the race’s fastest lap, on low fuel loads near the end of the race. The soft compound gave a good lap time straight away and was capable of longer first stints than we generally saw today. We are working closely with McLaren to understand what happened to Lewis Hamilton, but initial impressions are that this was not caused by a tyre issue.”

Stats of the Day

Race: 14:00 – 15:36