Bridgestone discounts blistering

With the Indy race moving from its usual September date to June, ambient temperatures, and hence track temperature, is higher than before and, on Friday, there was hope among some of the Michelin teams that Bridgestone may have underestimated the effects and may be in trouble with blistering.

Technical manager Hisao Suganuma was quick to dispel that after Saturday qualifying, however.

"The track temperature is as we expected," he said. "We checked the relation between ambient and track temperature at the Indy 500 [last month]. The average temperature in June was about 28 degrees and we knew that if it was sunny the track would come up to about 45 degrees. We saw that level of temperature on Friday but today and maybe tomorrow will be cooler.

"Heat durability will be the enemy but we think our tyre will survive, even with blisters. Yesterday, we saw some blisters but we could still manage a good lap time."

With Indy serving up both unique tyre loadings due to the banking and also the longest flat-out stretch of any circuit on the F1 calendar at over 20 seconds, Suganuma also denied that Bridgestone is running the risk of tyre failures if pushed hard over a race distance.

"There will be an initial drop-off and then the tyre will stabilise - that is what we are expecting," he said. "The tyres shouldn't fail - I don't think so. If the tyres do blister badly, the lap times will go off and the team will call drivers in anyway. It's not going to be a safety issue."