News Formula 1 and others race series

Bridgestone have confirmed which dry-weather tyres will be available to the teams at the next five races. Although super-soft and medium rubber will be used at next weekend’s German Grand Prix, the Japanese company plan to disregard their allocation rationale for the 2009 season, and bring adjacent compounds to the Hungarian, European, Belgian and Italian events.

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So for the upcoming race at Hungaroring and August’s European Grand Prix in Valencia, super soft and soft compounds will need to be used, while at the Belgian and Italian Grands Prix teams will be allocated soft and medium rubber tyres.

“We have made the change to the tyre allocation concept based on the data we have collected from races so far this year combined with our knowledge of the tracks we visit for these races,” said Hirohide Hamashima, Bridgestone director of motorsport tyre development. “The cars of 2009 are very different to those used last year so we have learnt a lot so far this year, and they do use their tyres differently from before.”

“Hungary is a circuit where the characteristics demand our softest tyres. This is also true for street courses, and we used the softest allocation earlier in the year at Monaco, and will again in Valencia. In Spa the weather temperatures can be quite cool, so the hard compound could have caused difficulties, and the super soft would have been too soft for this track, so that means the allocation of medium and soft is obvious. In Monza the hard compound would have given too big a difference between it and the soft, so we will bring the soft and the medium.”

Announced Bridgestone tyre allocations for the 2009 season:
Australia - super soft, medium
Malaysia - soft, hard
China - super soft, medium
Bahrain - super soft, medium
Spain - soft, hard
Monaco - super soft, soft
Turkey - soft, hard
Britain - soft, hard
Germany - super soft, medium
Hungary - super soft, soft
Europe - super soft, soft
Belgium - soft, medium
Italy - soft, medium