No favouritism says Stewart

F1 insiders have suggested that the Japanese company could supply more tyres to Ferrari than other teams because of a commercial agreement between the two companies that includes the supply of road tyres.

However, Stewart said that was unlikely because Bridgestone would not want to risk harming its relationships with other, bigger manufacturers like Ford and Mercedes.

'Ferrari has a quality name,' said Stewart, 'but they are a very small producer of cars. Ford is its [Bridgestone's] largest customer in the world and Mercedes-Benz is a very big user of its tyres, so the leverage that would be extended to stop something of that kind happening would be beyond their consideration.'

His comments came as it became clear that attempts to limit the amount of testing done by F1 teams this year appear to have failed.

Bridgestone had hoped to limit teams to a total of 50 days of testing throughout 1999. However, it now says that teams will be able to test almost as much as they like, as long as they use no more than the 200 sets of tyres it is prepared to make available to each outfit.

The new situation has annoyed some teams, notably Williams, who have been working to the 50-day rule.