Bridgestone confident over rain tyres

The Japanese tyre manufacturer admitted that the performance of their wet rubber was 'not good enough' in the soaked qualifying session at Shanghai as Michael Schumacher struggled to qualify in the top ten.

And although Bridgestone decided against changing their original wet tyre plans for this weekend's race in Suzuka as a result of what happened in China, the company's technical manager Hisao Suganuma believes there will be no repeat of the dramas.

He thinks that his company's decision to pursue harder compound wet tyres than rivals Michelin, which cost them pace in qualifying but paid off in the race, will not hurt them as much in Japan if conditions are similar.

"This track is much more abrasive than Shanghai, and on that sort of track the tyres we have will give a little bit better performance in qualifying if it is on the wetter side," he told autosport.com.

"I think China was an extreme case because the Chinese track surface is very smooth. The softer compound (Michelin) was better suited there and provided a bigger benefit over a hard compound (Bridgestone), while with an abrasive track like here the harder compound will perform in a better way."

With a chance that the season finale in Brazil could also be hit by rain, Suganuma has admitted that Bridgestone are evaluating whether they need to reconsider their wet tyre plans before Interlagos.

"We have to learn something from what happened in China. We need to improve the wet grip of our wet tyres. There are only two races remaining and we try to do our best and provide some better ones in Brazil. I am not sure if we can do that though."

The weather forecast for the weekend has been made difficult to predict exactly due to the proximity of two typhoons and the effect they are having on local weather fronts.

The current likelihood is for rain on Friday before it dries up for the rest of the weekend.