Bridgestone teams to keep up the pressure in Hungary
Bridgestone Motorsport heads to the 4.381 km Hungaroring circuit this week on the back of three consecutive wins with the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro team and some strong performances from several of the other Bridgestone runners. With the championship battle now wide open, the heat will literally be turning up this August.
Historically, Bridgestone shod teams have gone well on this circuit with five wins since 1999. However, the track, which lies approximately 20 kms outside the city of Budapest, can be a tough one to master for tyre manufacturers and so Bridgestone made sure it conducted the necessary tyre test simulations in July, prior to the test ban commencing. Tyres for this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix will be from the same family as those used with such great success at the last round in Germany.
Hiroshi Yasukawa, Director of Motorsport “Last weekend we reached a milestone in Bridgestone’s history in F1 – the 100th win on Bridgestone Potenza tyres. This weekend we hope to start the next century by putting a Bridgestone runner on the top step of the podium in Hungary. We are approaching a crucial time in the championship for all our teams and we shall be supporting them as much as we can.”
Tyres for Hungary – 4.381km
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 Hungaroring.
Hungaroring Preview with Hisao Suganuma Bridgestone Motorsport Technical Manager: “The Hungaroring is one of the slowest circuits on the F1 calendar and because of this continuous flow of cornering the tyres do not get the opportunity to cool down. Racing in Hungary in August also means the tyres are exposed to quite high track temperatures so we need tyres with a compound with good heat durability. The nature of the circuit also means that good rear traction is required and the track surface is relatively smooth so we shall be using tyres from the softer end of the compound range to give our teams the necessary grip. All in all, it can be a tough track from a tyre point of view but our July tyre tests at Paul Ricard and Jerez proved particularly helpful in identifying the tyre specifications for Germany and Hungary. After seeing the results at Hockenheim we are confident we can keep up our competitive challenge in Hungary this weekend.”
