Bridgestone predicts tyre tactics

The company believes the combination of medium and high speed corners, together with an abrasive surface will mean soft or medium tyres for the front runners.

'These factors led us to offer the F1 teams a choice of our soft and medium compounds for Suzuka, which from our point of view most closely resembles Barcelona and Silverstone,' said Bridgestone Motorsport's technical manager Yoshihiko Ichikawa.

This Sunday's race, which will close the 1999 season, will see either Ferrari's Eddie Irvine or McLaren's Mika Hakkinen crowned as world champion.

Bridgestone claims that a good qualifying position will be even more important than usual.

'Nevertheless, the difficulty in overtaking puts an even great premium than usual on qualifying well,' added Ichikawa, 'and it is inevitable that many teams will therefor choose the soft compound.

'They will have to bear in mind, though, that the soft can be expected to suffer high degradation which will almost certainly require those who choose it to probably make two pit stops.'