Bridgestone Motorsport and its four teams have had a busy first day of running at the Spanish Grand Prix. Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro’s Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello topped the time sheets in this morning’s practice with the reigning World Champion posting a time of 1m 15.658s - a full nine tenths faster than the nearest rival team’s driver. Second practice was used mainly for long runs and further tyre analysis and although light rain interrupted the session, only dry tyres were used. Michael Schumacher’s time stood as the fastest time of the day. Final decisions about which tyres to use in qualifying and the race will be made this evening following consultation with each of the Bridgestone teams.

Hisao Suganuma, Technical Manager of Bridgestone Motorsport:
“All four of the Bridgestone teams tried their two tyre specifications today and so far our initial feeling is that both the “soft” and “hard” specifications will be competitive in Sunday’s race. We do need to sit down with our teams tonight to make a final decision and that will be done once our engineers have gathered and processed the data from today’s practices. The decisions about which tyre to run in qualifying tomorrow and in Sunday’s race will be based firstly on lap times and secondly by the drivers and their preference for front-rear tyre balance. Tyre wear life and durability will also be taken into account. ”

The Teams

Ross Brawn, Technical Director of Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro:
“Today was all about race work and we were able to obtain lots of very good Bridgestone tyre data. The drivers are happy with their cars and we have one tyre which is faster over one lap than the other but the second is more consistent. So now we need to look at the data and decide which tyre fits into our strategy. We also need to take into account the weather forecast for Sunday. Of course, qualifying performance is very important because if you don’t qualify well you can get held up during the race.”