Bridgestone keen to improve qualifying

Bridgestone have won three out of four races so far in 2007 with Casey Stoner and Ducati, but Michelin have been dominant in qualifying, with Valentino Rossi taking three poles and Dani Pedrosa securing the other.

"One of the issues at the moment for us is our qualifying tyre," Yamada admitted in an autosport.com interview.

"When we went to the IRTA test at Jerez, our qualifying tyre did not work so well compared to Michelin. And many of our partners complained about our tyre - they would like to have more grip of course. As always!

"At that time, we could also see from the lap time that there was a big difference compared to the Michelin riders. Some riders said that our front was not good enough compared to our rear. Michelin were using the front qualifying tyre at the time.

"We thought that we needed to improve our grip level at the front, but always the grip level balance between the front and the rear is very important. When we increase the rear grip balance, then the front starts pushing.

"We tried to make a new front qualifying tyre, but during the tests after Qatar and Turkey, and I don't know why, our riders did not complain so much about the front. Maybe this comes from the characteristics of the circuits, or the weather of the Jerez IRTA test - I am not sure.

"Now we still have a little bit of a disadvantage in this area.

"The last time in China we got second, fourth and sixth (on the grid), which was very even from the result. But if we consider the lap time from the race tyre to the qualifying, maybe the race tyre was a little bit better but the difference between it and the qualifying tyre was more than Michelin.

"We would like to improve more for qualifying, but we think we need to improve more for the rear. Now, no one complains about the front."

Yamada suspects that Michelin could be harder to beat now that the series has returned to the more traditional, European circuits.

"Of course, in China and Turkey we never tested there before the season," he said.

"These conditions were the same for Michelin and Bridgestone. But of course Michelin have plenty of data from the European tracks."