Q & A with Bridgestone's Hisao Suganuma

While many fans will miss their favourites, a lot of the paddock will also be ruing the loss of Bridgestone's popular technical manager Hisao Suganuma, whose tour of duty in Formula One comes to an end after December's winter testing.

Suganuma took up his current position at the start of 2001 and has helped guide Ferrari to four world championship titles - as well as building a strong rapport with Michael Schumacher.

And although he did not get the dream send off with another world title this season before his return home to Japan, Suganuma has told autosport.com that he is proud of the job Bridgestone did this year.

Q. Are you disappointed to be leaving F1, or are you looking forward to returning home to Japan?

Hisao Suganuma: I like Formula One very much, so in that respect I am a little bit disappointed. But on the other hand going back to Japan, because I am Japanese, it means that I can be together with my family again, which is nice.

Q. You have had a great five years in your position - winning four championships and a lot of success with Michael Schumacher...

HS: Yes, actually this is my sixth season. I am quite happy with what I could do. Of course the last year (2005) was the only year where we were quite disappointed.

Q. Were there any particular favourite moments that stand out?

HS: Well, the things I remember are the 2002 and 2004 seasons. In those years we made some great success, I would say, and we could show the clear advantage on the tyre performance. They were very good years for me.

Q. How do you evaluate the 2006 season and the way it panned out?

HS: In this season we could make some big steps forward in tyre performance. We developed the new construction during the winter testing and that helped quite well. Those new constructions helped the compound quite a lot, so we could use full performance of the compounds and that allowed us to use the softer range of compounds.

That gave better performance to the car, so that was where we made quite a good success with the tyre. So I am quite satisfied with the outcome of this season's campaign.

Q. Was it one of the toughest you remember in terms of the fluctuations in form and trying to pick the right tyre for a given weekend?

HS: Yes, of course every season is tough. We had to choose the right tyre at the right moment, and we had a few strong teams this year and that meant we had to have special attention for everybody.

That was tougher for us, but on the other hand having a few strong teams was always good for the tyre development point of view because we could always cross-reference the results, so we could make sure that the results were correct. And we could do the testing in a parallel way, which accelerated the speed of development. That helped with this year's success.

Q. The kind of dominance you showed at some races from mid-season onwards, do you think that would not have been possible without the extra knowledge supplied by Williams and Toyota?

HS: It is difficult to say, but as I said having a few strong teams accelerated the development speed. Because we tried to enhance this tyre performance therefore the tyre working range itself was quite peaky, with a very narrow operating band.

The drivers needed to control it in a precise way, but they are professional and they could use that type of tyre and get the full performance out of the tyres - and there was good collaboration between the tyre manufacturers and the teams. And between the teams as well.

We did some data sharing of our test results, and that also helped quite well with each team. They knew what the others were doing, and the teams could make a cross reference to their results and other team's results. This season was a tough season but I could enjoy it very much.

Q. One of the key advantages Bridgestone had at the end of the season was the one-lap pace the tyre had in qualifying. Do you think that was a key factor in getting Ferrari back into the title hunt, because Renault admitted that their strategies were compromised at times because they could not control things from the front?

HS: To be honest we were not particularly aiming to enhance single lap performance. Although in the previous year with some tyres we struggled with single lap performance, and with this year's tyres we also initially struggled with it thanks to warm up issues, we made a concerted effort to improve in that area. Our compound choice did a lot to help in that area and that was the result.

So we had the new type of compound this year and that gave us quite a lot of advantage on the total tyre performance. Then, together with our team's efforts to make a better car set-up for those tyres, our effort helped make the cars faster.

Q. Was there an element of frustration that after a really tough battle between Bridgestone and Michelin all season, the title fight was all but decided by Michael Schumacher's engine failure in Japan, and not by a pure performance fight?

HS: You know, that was just racing. Sometimes it does happen because our tyres are not always perfect - sometimes we see high degradation or even a failure. Things happen on the car side as well, so I would say we are mature enough to understand that these things go on.

Q. You didn't win either of the championships in Brazil, but you still dominated the race. What were your feelings after Interlagos?

HS: From a tyre performance point of view I was really happy. It was clear that our tyre performed perfectly I would say and in the technical meeting after the race with Ferrari, both Felipe (Massa) and Michael said to us that the tyre performed perfectly. Both drivers said to us that the tyre was fantastic and as you can see in the race Michael's performance was exceptional.

I would have enjoyed it if everything was correct with Michael (instead of him suffering the puncture) and the whole package could have given maximum performance. It was a shame Michael could not have won the race in the end, but he might have. And if he had won there could have been a miracle to help him win the championship.

Q. Are you satisfied with the job you did this season?

HS: I think we made a big step forward in terms of tyre performance this year so from the engineering point of view I am really happy about this year's outcome.