Podium for Ferrari and Bridgestone in Spain

Michael Schumacher and Felipe Massa spearheaded Bridgestone’s Spanish Grand Prix charge today but despite their best efforts couldn’t quite catch local hero, Fernando Alonso, at the Spaniard’s home grand prix. Felipe Massa was actually the quickest man on track today after posting a 1m16.648 on lap 42 but the Ferraris first had to battle to get past Renault’s Giancarlo Fisichella before even attempting a move on the race leader.

In the end, it wasn’t quite enough and the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro pair took the chequered flag in second and fourth places respectively. Ferrari maintain their second place standing in the constructors’ points and Schumacher and Massa take enough points to keep them second and fifth in the drivers’ championship points standings.

Of the remaining Bridgestone runners, WilliamsF1’s Mark Webber and Nico Rosberg finished ninth and eleventh after getting caught up in the mid-field traffic and Panasonic Toyota Racing’s Jarno Trulli finished tenth. MF1 Racing’s Tiago Monteiro and Super Aguri F1 Team’s Takuma Sato will be pleased to have completed the race today, giving them confidence ahead of the next round in Monaco.

Hisao Suganuma, Technical Manager of Bridgestone Motorsport “We had quite hot weather today with track temperatures coming up to 37 degrees which is about the same as yesterday. We saw our tyres perform consistently in these conditions but we could probably do with a little more grip. Nevertheless every race result gives us valuable data and we will learn from today and improve for the coming races. Tyre appearance was quite good, there were no specific problems and we’ll take second and fourth – they are not at all bad results. Mark Webber and Nico Rosberg got caught up in traffic and although they did their best they couldn’t make it into the points. It was a little disappointing that the Toyota drivers didn’t capitalise on their grid positions. Tiago Monteiro and Takuma Sato both finished today’s tough race which was good to see and now we shall go away, analyse the situation and see how we can help our teams even more from a tyre point of view.”

Bridgestone Team News
Ross Brawn, Technical Director – Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro “Obviously we had the worst case scenario today and while Giancarlo Fisichella was in front of us we couldn’t even attempt to get Fernando Alonso. So we sat there until the first opportunity. Michael managed to get past [Fisichella] but really we weren’t quite quick enough. I think Alonso had the edge on speed today. The car and Bridgestone tyres performed well but we just need to find that little extra performance.”