Bridgestone: Next three races are crucial

Bridgestone was roundly criticised after the French Grand Prix, where only two of its cars finished in the points, but Yasukawa is looking forward rather than back as the season heads into its final six races.

"The next three races will be crucial to the outcome of this year's championship and we're looking forward to a fantastic battle," said Yasukawa. "We have recognised the need for a major push in development and have spent a great deal of effort working with our teams recently doing just that."

Yasukawa has cited a successful week of testing as a pointer to the rubber manufacturer's hopes this weekend.

"Last week's testing in Europe saw us run a thorough set of tyre test programmes with our teams," he said. "Due to their availability of resources and test drivers, the bulk of this testing was carried out by the Ferrari and BAR-Honda teams, both of whom had four drivers at their disposal over the course of the test days.

"Stability is a key issue at Silverstone because of high speed corners such as Copse and Becketts. But this is just stage one in our current development drive. I was very satisfied with last week's testing and it has given us some significant pointers for future development. There will almost certainly be further developments being phased in over the next few races."