Bridgestone declared themselves very pleased with the durability and grip of both compounds of tyres at the German Grand Prix.
The Japanese tyre company brought rubber from the two extremes of their range to Hockenheim – the super soft and the hard tyres – something they haven’t tried before.
“Both compounds worked better than we expected,” said Hirohide Hamashima, Bridgestone Director of Motorsport Tyre Development. “The super soft lasted very well. A good exampleof this was Jenson Button who was to gain position by staying on the super soft for his first stint longer than the other front runners.
“The hard compound did take longer to warm-up than we usually see with the prime tyre, and we saw evidence of this in the race with locked brakes, less grip in the corners and lower traction before it was in its correct temperature operating range.
“I believe that today was a good illustration of the strength of our development engineers in Japan. These tyres were designed before the start of the season, and we have many changes such as the narrower front tyres, and no more refuelling meaning heavier cars. Despite this, our engineers have produced tyres capable of working well with this season's cars, even when we try an extreme allocation as we did here.”
