Australia Saturday quotes: Bridgestone
Hirohide Hamashima - Bridgestone Director of Motorsport Tyre Development
What was significant about today's running?
"Qualifying was a good battle with very close times and Sebastian Vettel did a very good job to take pole. There is an interesting line-up in the top ten so there is good potential for tomorrow's race. The temperatures today were a lot cooler than yesterday, which presented a challenge for drivers, especially in qualifying. Qualifying was interesting as different strategies were used because of the threat of rain."
What are the tyre strategy considerations for tomorrow's race?
"Track condition will play a large part. The track was quite green at the start of today, because of the rain last night. If there is rain before tomorrow's race we will face quite a difficult track, and those starting on the soft tyre will have the concern of graining on the left tyres, either front, rear, or both depending on the car and set-up. If a driver can protect their tyres then a one stop strategy should be possible, and the lower pit lane speed limit we have here also plays to this approach. The soft tyre is around 0.5 seconds faster for its fastest lap than the harder tyre, but we really don't have sufficient data to know how long it will last here. This, and the variable of the Melbourne weather, will be the biggest unknowns for tomorrow's race."
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments