Bridgestone to supply special tyres for Mugello MotoGP race after Assen problems

Three riders suffered issues with the right shoulder of their rear tyres at Assen, prompting Bridgestone to immediately send the affected tyres back to its technical centre in Japan.

While the tests revealed the damage - which affected the thread of the rear - was down to excessive heating rather than any manufacturing default, Bridgestone said it would bring a special compound to Mugello as a precaution.

"We performed detailed analysis of the affected MotoGP rear tyres from Assen, [which] definitively showed that there was no manufacturing fault with the tyres supplied at Assen," Bridgestone's motorsport tyre development manager Shinji Aoki said.

"Excessive heat build-up caused tread chunking of some riders' rear tyres, [and] we could not anticipate such irregular rear tyre behaviour.

"Our analysis of the data acquired from Mugello shows that this circuit is not as severe on tyres as Assen, though as a precaution we will produce and deliver special construction rear slick tyres to next week's Italian Grand Prix."

Aoki said the issue would have no effect on this weekend's German Grand Prix as Bridgestone already supplies special compounds for the Sachsenring as policy.

"At Sachsenring it is usual for tyre temperatures to be higher than at other circuits, so for this event we traditionally have supplied special construction tyres that are specifically developed to handle extreme heat levels," Aoki confirmed.

"The tyres supplied for this event are more than able to cope with this increase."

Asked whether the revisions Bridgestone made to its compounds ahead of the 2012 season had contributed to the problems at Assen, Aoki said: "No, the difference was not a contributing factor.

"The construction of the 2012 specification tyres does enable quicker warm-up performance, but this revised construction was not a factor in the excessive tyre heating that caused the problems experienced at Assen."