Bridgestone upbeat as European F1 season starts

Bridgestone's five teams head for Italy this weekend where round four, the San Marino Grand Prix, of the FIA Formula One World Championship kicks off the European F1 season. After a good start to the year which has seen both Schumacher brothers claim podiums for their respective teams (Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro and Panasonic Toyota Racing) and each of the WilliamsF1 drivers take all important points, the Bridgestone shod teams have been extremely busy over the past three weeks.

All the teams, including the MF1 Racing and Super Aguri F1 teams, have been testing Bridgestone's tyres and preparing their cars and any new upgrades ahead of this weekend's 62-lap race. Bridgestone's tyres have traditionally performed well at the 4.933km Italian track and this year Bridgestone's engineers have continued their pace of development to ensure the teams have the right soft compounds for the cooler weather conditions which can be expected in Europe in April.

Hiroshi Yasukawa, Director of Motorsport "Bridgestone's teams have had a solid start to the 2006 season and we are now expecting them to build on those results. We have already seen Bridgestone drivers on pole, on the podium and take the fastest lap of the race this season. This is a great start, especially with three new teams this year. But we now need to push hard as our teams aspire for wins and more constructor championship points as we start the European rounds."

"This track is one of Ferrari's home tracks so we can expect them in particular to be pushing hard in front their many supporters and I am sure Jarno Trulli will also be looking to impress on home soil. It has the potential to be a great race weekend!"

"The San Marino GP will also host the second round of the GP2 Series after the hugely successful first races in Valencia ten days ago. We look forward to our potential future world champions battling it out in front of the F1 crowds for the remainder of the season."

Tyres for San Marino

The 2006 tyre regulations permit each driver seven sets of dry tyres, four sets of wet weather tyres and three sets of extreme wet weather tyres. Combined with the increased number of teams running with Bridgestone in 2006, approximately 1,200 Bridgestone Potenza Formula One tyres have been sent from the Technical Centre in Kodaira City, Tokyo, to the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari.

Hisao Suganuma, Bridgestone Motorsport Technical Manager "We've had a good start to the season and we're now eager to get racing again in Europe. From a track surface point of view Imola is relatively rough but the nature of the circuit does allow us to use compounds from the softer end of the scale."

"Furthermore, the use of softer compounds at Imola allows us to maximize grip levels at a circuit where temperatures can vary quite a bit. Track temperatures can reach 35 degrees celcius if the sun comes out but we generally expect fairly cool weather in this region of Italy at this time of year."

"Grip, not wear or heat durability, will be the key issue in Imola for our teams. As a result of the successful development of the compounds which ran earlier this year we are bringing further new compounds to San Marino to tackle this issue. Testing of these compounds recently produced some very interesting results so we are keen to see them in action in San Marino this weekend."