Race time for Bridgestone

It’s race time! The start of the 2007 FIA Formula One World Championship gets underway with the ING Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park this week. Twenty-one weeks since the 2006 season finale in Brazil, the Australian GP, which once again returns as season opener after the Bahrain GP started last year’s season, takes place on the temporary street course which has hosted the event since 1996.

As befits a temporary course, grip levels are expected to vary significantly during the course of the event and Melbourne's notoriously fickle weather will add to the unpredictability as all 22 competitors line up on Bridgestone tyres for the start of the first race.

After months of speculation and countless miles of testing this is where the reality bites with 58 laps of the 5.303 km track. The two dry tyres which will be used for this event are the soft and the medium compounds, both of which have to be used during the course of the race.

“We are confident the tyres will perform well this weekend,” said Kees van de Grint, Bridgestone Motorsport’s Head of Track Engineering Operations.

“However, what is always a difficult part of the Australian race is that we are never sure about the weather: it could be quite warm, and it could be cold. Also, as the circuit is not a permanent one it will be quite slippery in the beginning.”

With 2200 medium and soft tyres will be sent to Australia for the race, Van de Grint believed it was up to the individual drivers to get the best out of their tyres. “We are also no longer making tyres for a particular chassis or particular driver,” he said.

“Everybody is the same, so the teams have to adjust the car and the driver has to adjust his driving style, to get the best performance out of the tyres.”