Bridgestone, who bow out of Formula 1 at the end of this season, have announced the tyre compounds that they will be bringing to the final four races of 2010.
The Japanese tyre company have already announced the allocation of Potenza tyres that they will provide for the teams in the next two races in Italy and Singapore. For Monza the soft and hard tyres will be used, and for the Asian night-race, it will be the super-soft and medium compounds.
For the four remaining races (Japan, Korea, Brazil and Abu Dhabi) Bridgestone will continue to leave one compound gap between the two types of tyres they bring to each venue. At Suzuka, and the new Yeongam track in Korea, the soft and hard compounds have been chosen, while at Interlagos and Yas Marina, super soft and medium compounds will be on offer to the teams.
Hirohide Hamashima, Bridgestone Head of Motorsport Tyre Development, explains that deciding on the compounds to take to the first-ever Korean Grand Prix was their biggest dilemma:
Hamashima also explained the reasoning behind Bridgestone’s allocations for the other three tracks. “Suzuka puts the tyres through a tough workout so we have the harder combination of hard and soft, whilst Sao Paulo and Yas Marina suit the softer combination of super soft and medium,” he said. “Due to the nature of the tracks, there were no further opportunities for a hard – super soft allocation, although we did evaluate this after the lessons learnt at the Nurburgring [Hockenheimring?].”
