Bridgestone to keep gap between tyres

With the refuelling ban set to put more emphasis on teams and drivers looking after their tyres in the race, F1's official supplier has confirmed its plans for this season.

"Like 2009, Bridgestone intends to take two dry compounds which are a step allocation apart to most races: Hard and Soft or Medium and Super Soft for example," explained Bridgestone's F1 technical manager Tetsuro Kobayashi

"This will not be possible at some races however, such as Monaco, where it is important to have consecutive soft compounds to ensure maximum grip on the street circuit.

"The compound allocation will again be determined by Bridgestone, based on our experience of previous years and the data received from the teams."

Early experience of the tyres from testing at Valencia in Spain this week has shown no hints of there being any problems with the 2010 tyres coping with the heavier cars that will be a feature of racing this year.

"Certainly, with the cars being potentially 100kgs heavier this year at the start of the races than last year, the longer stint lengths with greater amounts of fuel will place additional loads on the tyres," explained Kobayashi.

"But our 2010 casing should be much more durable in comparison to the 2009 casing: the strengthened rear construction in particular; will help the cars accommodate this new rule.

"We will also keep monitoring and analysing the data very carefully at the coming winter tests and races because the downforce created by the 2010 cars will keep improving throughout the season. We have already noted that much higher downforces are being produced in comparison to last season."

Kobayashi has also confirmed that green sidewall markings will again be used this year to visually differentiate the two different tyre compounds.

"We will mark the softer of the two compounds available at each race weekend with green bands on the outer edges of the sidewalls. We tested many different alternatives and this location gave the best visibility, from the side and also a head-on view. We have used the colour green as it shows our support of the FIA's Make Cars Green campaign."