The Valencia race circuit in Spain played host to Bridgestone’s medium compound Potenza for ten of Formula One’s eleven teams for the second test of 2008 on January 22-24.

The medium compound Potenza dry grooved racing tyre was in action for the entirety of the test which took place in dry conditions, with blue skies overhead on the first two days, but a mainly cloudy and overcast day three. No runs were completed using any of Bridgestone’s wet range of Potenza Formula One tyres.

Teams completed valuable evaluation work with both the latest and last season’s cars run to the 2008 regulations. New cars from BMW Sauber, Ferrari, Honda, McLaren, Red Bull, Renault, Toyota and Williams and were all put through their paces along with older cars from some of these teams as well as Force India and Toro Rosso. Super Aguri were not present at this test.

Bridgestone Potenza Formula One tyres will be in use next week at Barcelona on 1-3 February, where Bridgestone’s hard compound Potenza will be used for the first time this year.

Q&A with Tetsuro Kobayashi – Technical Manager, Bridgestone Motorsport:

What has Bridgestone learnt from this test?
“Valencia is an interesting circuit with a mixture of low and medium speed corners, as well as a reasonably long straight, which makes it useful for data accumulation. This has been a useful exercise to see how our tyres interact with the latest cars from the teams, and we had no interruptions from poor weather over these three days. As the car regulations are largely the same as the previous season it becomes more critical for the teams and drivers to extract the maximum from the Bridgestone Potenzas and watching the evolution of the new cars for this purpose is fascinating.”

What is the rest of the test programme before the season starts?
“From Valencia we head to Barcelona with an expected eight teams who will use the hard compound Potenza. Ferrari and Toyota will test in Bahrain with the medium compound between 4-6 and 9-11 February and should see hotter running than we have had in Europe. After that, it is back to Jerez with an expected nine teams and the medium compound on 12-14 February. Six teams are expected to return to Barcelona between19-21 February, with certain teams opting to test at other locations in this period. Finally, between 25-27 February we will have a test in Barcelona with the hard compound where all teams are expected to attend. This is an intense period of activity for us, and unlike many teams our engineers attend both the tests and the races. There are now under 50 days before we see running at Albert Park for the first race of the season, and I am sure we will see plenty of progress from the teams between now and then.”