Bridgestone announces 2008 tyre compounds

Bridgestone, the Official Tyre Supplier to the FIA Formula One World Championship, is pleased to announce the compound allocations of Potenza tyres for the first nine rounds of the 2008 FIA Formula One World Championship.

The Bridgestone Potenza tyres for the 2008 season feature minor changes, made in the interests of safety, from last season’s tyres. The allocations for the first nine races of the season are the same as used in the respective events in 2007 except for the Bahrain Grand Prix, which will now use the medium and soft compounds, as opposed to the hard and medium compounds in 2007.

Also of note, the super soft compound, which will be used at the Monaco Grand Prix, is modified from the compound used in 2007. The other three compounds, hard, medium and soft remain the same, as do Bridgestone’s wet and extreme wet tyres.

The tyre marking of the softer of the two tyres allocated to a Grand Prix continues with the bottom of the second from inside groove painted white. The FIA’s tyre regulations are unchanged from those which occurred in 2007 as regards dry and wet tyre allocation numbers.

Each driver receives 14 sets of dry tyres for a Grand Prix, broken down into seven sets of each compound. Four sets of wet tyres and three sets of extreme wet tyres are additionally available to drivers.

Hirohide Hamashima, Bridgestone Motorsport Director of Motorsport Tyre Development, says: “Tyre allocation choice for the first half of the season has been made easier by the continuity of our tyres from last year. We have made a minor evolutionary change to the construction of the dry tyres for safety and we have modified the super soft compound, but apart from that the tyres are the same. However, we should see faster lap times as teams and drivers now have a year’s experience with these tyres and the cars are being developed all the time. For Bahrain, having looked at the data we accumulated last year, and data from the recent test there, we are confident about using softer tyres. In the second half of the season we will have more of a challenge with tyre allocation as we visit two new street courses at Valencia and Singapore. These will be announced at a later date.”

Tyre compounds for the 2008 season:
Australia -> Soft and Medium Malaysia -> Medium and Hard Bahrain -> Soft and Medium Spain -> Medium and Hard
Turkey -> Medium and Hard Monaco -> Super Soft and Soft
Canada -> Super Soft and Soft
France -> Soft and Medium Britain -> Medium and Hard