Wet and dry conditions serve the challenge for Bridgestone
Bridgestone’s super soft tyre took Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro’s Fernando Alonso to the fastest time of the day amidst variable weather conditions at Hockenheim for the first day of the German Grand Prix. Alonso set a 1m 16.265secs lap time in the drier afternoon session, after a morning where Bridgestone’s wet and intermediate tyres were used.
Force India F1 Team driver Adrian Sutil set the fastest time in the morning, using Bridgestone’s intermediate tyres.
Q&A with Hirohide Hamashima - Bridgestone Director of Motorsport Tyre Development
What was significant about today’s running? “Today was very challenging and interesting from a tyre perspective. We had a very wet circuit in the morning, but one which was drying through the session. Teams were able to evaluate the performance of the wet and intermediate tyres in these conditions which gives us and them very useful data on the crossover point between the wet and intermediates. The afternoon started with a track which was completely dry in some areas, but still with puddles in others. Again a challenge, but we saw good running with both compounds of the dry Bridgestones in this session.”
How do you expect this allocation to work over the weekend? “We have never used such a wide gap between compounds for our allocation for a race before so this is a learning process for everyone. This afternoon we saw graining of all types on the super soft tyres, on the front and the rear. Interestingly, the front graining did not affect lap time so much today for some drivers. The hard tyre proved very durable, and warm-up was not as challenging as it could have been. Hopefully tomorrow we will be able to gain more data ahead of the race. However, we could have a wet circuit once more, and a wet qualifying session, so being on the right tyre at the right time through qualifying will be very important.”
