New software helps Bridgestone in F1

The performance off a race tyre depends less on the efficiency of its groove pattern than on the chemical reaction between the rubber and water. Until Bridgestone's technical department in Japan acquired the software, the only way to prove the performance of any rain tyre compound, when cut with any groove pattern, was to make the tyre and track-test it.

Since the software has been deployed, Bridgestone's wet-weather and intermediate tyres look quite different. The intermediate has vertical and lateral grooves which evacuate water from the tyre as a whole, and small cuts (called 'sipes') which disperse the water from the individual blocks of rubber.

The British GP was the first F1 race of 2002 run in wet conditions, and the capability off the latest Bridgestone tyres could only be judged previously from wet free practice at Imola. Suganuma noted: "We've worked hard to produce the best tyres that we can for wet and damp conditions, and I think Silverstone demonstrated that it has paid off. But the work continues."