Korea Friday quotes: Bridgestone

What was significant about today's running?

"Today was significant as after much speculation we finally started the Grand Prix weekend at this fantastic new Formula 1 venue. As expected, the track surface started exceptionally slippery but we saw a phenomenal amount of track surface evolution through today's sessions. The first lap of the day was over 2minutes 20 seconds, the last one was more than 42 seconds faster than that. I believe there is still potential for further track improvement tomorrow, especially if the weather remains dry and warm like today."

How do you expect this allocation to work over the weekend?

"This is a tricky question and I don't think we can give a definitive answer. We saw a lot of graining on both compounds front and rear today. This is related to the dirty surface as the tyres cannot grip the tarmac properly. This situation should continue to improve with the track surface evolution tomorrow. We expect that the option tyre should give a faster lap time and if the surface continues to improve it should have reasonable durability. How much durability depends on the track surface evolution so this will be the crucial question for the next two days."