Bridgestone Motorsport's engineers
are eagerly anticipating this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix after
Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro's Michael Schumacher wowed everyone at
the previous round in Imola with his stunning display of speed and
race craft that produced a well earned second place podium spot.
Having evidently lost none of the hunger that drives a world champion,
Bridgestone is looking forward to its outing with Schumacher this
weekend as well as his teammate Rubens Barrichello, who will be
hoping Lady Luck is back on his side. The Jordan Grand Prix and
Minardi F1 teams will also be aiming to push hard in Spain after
another few days of tyre testing with Bridgestone last week.
Hiroshi
Yasukawa, Director of Motorsport:
"This week's Spanish Grand Prix has all the hallmarks
of being another classic race. We clearly saw in Imola that following
an intensive period of working closely with our teams, we have been
able to provide them with increasingly competitive tyres. To see
Michael Schumacher running up to two seconds a lap faster than his
rivals was hugely satisfying and we intend to keep up the momentum.
The race in Spain will undoubtedly produce another big showdown
between the leading runners and we expect the Ferrari drivers to
be right up there, showing what they can do in front of the expected
capacity crowd. I can't wait!"
Tyres
for Spain
The 4.627km Circuit de Catalunya underwent considerable
resurfacing work during the winter months and as a consequence,
has become relatively smooth on track. The circuit is still notoriously
tough on tyres, however, and Bridgestone had to consider both these
factors before choosing to bring a range of tyres from its hard
to medium range of compounds. An appropriate wet and extreme wet
weather specification has also been selected for the circuit.
Hisao
Suganuma, Technical Manager:
"Barcelona is now smoother than in previous years
but it is still a hard wearing track from a tyre point of view.
The number of high speed corners and undulating nature of the circuit
make it hard on the brakes and tyres. It is also possible that at
this time of year, temperatures may start to rise a bit. Taking
all these factors into account we have again chosen tyres which
have shown a high, consistent performance and we are confident that
following testing last week, where we tried approximately 15 different
Bridgestone Potenza tyre specifications with Ferrari and Minardi
in Mugello and Jordan at Silverstone, our tyres should be strong
in Spain. I am very much looking forward to the weekend as our teams
should be looking good: Ferrari continues to get stronger and stronger,
Jordan is working hard on its development programme and Minardi
has had more time to get to grips with their new PS05." |
