Bridgestone announces compound allocations

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

For the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim, the hard and medium compounds will be used. This is the first time these tyres have been used at this track, as there was no Grand Prix here in 2007. In Hungary, the soft and super soft compounds will be used, the same allocation as last season.

The European Grand Prix at Valencia will utilize the soft and super soft compounds. This will be the first Grand Prix at this new street course. In Spa and in Monza the hard and medium compounds will be used. Last season the medium and soft compounds were brought to both of these tracks, so this is a change for this year.

Hirohide Hamashima, Bridgestone Motorsport Director of Motorsport Tyre Development, says:
“The data we have gained from the first seven races of the season have enabled us to make our allocation choices for the following five events. Of these races, Valencia and Hockenheim are notable. We did not race at Hockenheim last year, so this will be the first time we have raced there with the current family of tyres. Valencia, of course, is a new street track and we do not have any previous data, and there is none from other race series. It will be interesting for everyone concerned to learn the track characteristics here. For Spa and Monza we have moved the allocation a position harder and will bring the hard and medium compounds, instead of the medium and soft used in 2007. We have made this change after analysing the data from last year, as these tracks were harsher than we had predicted. We will make an announcement about the tyre allocations for the final four races in the season later in the year.”

Tyre compounds for the 2008 season

ING Australian Grand Prix (Melbourne): Soft, Medium Petronas Malaysian Grand Prix (Sepang): Medium, Hard Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix (Sakhir): Soft, Medium Gran Premio de España Telefónica (Barcelona): Medium, Hard
Petrol Ofisi Turkish Grand Prix (Istanbul): Medium, Hard Grand Prix de Monaco (Monte Carlo): Super Soft, Soft
Grand Prix du Canada (Montreal): Super Soft, Soft
Grand Prix de France (Magny Cours): Soft, Medium
Santander British Grand Prix (Silverstone): Medium, Hard
Grosser Preis Santander Von Deutschland (Hockenheim): Medium, Hard
ING Magyar Nagyar (Budapest): Super Soft, Soft
Grand Prix of Europe (Valencia): Super Soft, Soft
ING Belgian Grand Prix (Spa-Francorchamps): Medium, Hard
Gran Premio Santander D’Italia (Monza): Medium, Hard