Friday Bridgestone press release - 6th May 18:56pm GMT

The Spanish Grand Prix weekend kicked off today in hot and sunny conditions with Bridgestone’s three teams Ferrari, Jordan and Minardi getting to grips with the now relatively smooth surface of the Circuit de Catalunya. The circuit, which was resurfaced over the winter, is still tough on tyres so tyre choices will be particularly important this weekend. Rubens Barrichello had an interrupted start to his weekend and lost time in the first session due to a hydraulic problem but was able to run his comparisons in the second session.

Hisao Suganuma, Bridgestone Motorsport Technical Manager:
“Track conditions were reasonable today from the start, enabling the cars to start running at a good pace. Obviously Ferrari didn’t get much running in the first session but were able to carry out their tyre comparisons in the second session. Jordan and Minardi too completed their programmes and we have plenty of data from which we can make our recommendations for the tyre choice. The hot conditions here are not extreme in comparison to Malaysia or Bahrain and I’m sure we’ll have a good race pace this weekend.”

The Teams
Ross Brawn, Technical Director of Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro:
“We had some technical problems today which held up the programme a bit but we’ve recovered well. We hope that’s it for the weekend. We’ve done our tyre comparisons and it’s pretty clear which way we want to go and we have all the data we would want there. I think we’ll have a good race pace.”