17/06/2004
NEWS STORY
Bridgestone Motorsport and its four teams have had a race against time this week as they packed up after the Canadian Grand Prix and made their way down to Indianapolis, USA for Round Nine of the FIA Formula One World Championship. Buoyed by the success of its teams north of the border, the Bridgestone team has arrived at the world famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway in confident mood and not even the impending wet weather forecast can dampen its spirits. Come rain or shine, Bridgestone expects to put its teams in the game this coming Sunday.
Hiroshi Yasukawa, Director of Motorsport: After such a successful race in Canada, I am very much looking forward to this weekend’s race. All our teams now seem to have settled into the season and are beginning to get the most from Bridgestone’s tyres - with rewarding results. The Indianapolis Speedway is also home from home for Bridgestone and it is a pleasure to return each year to a venue where we receive such a wonderful reception from the race fans.
2004 Tyres for Indianapolis
Bridgestone Motorsport has flown 1,400 Potenza Formula One tyres from its Tokyo production facility to the Indianapolis Grand Prix. These comprise of four different dry weather specifications, one wet weather and one extreme weather specification. Bridgestone’s engineers have carefully chosen the tyres to suit the unique US Grand Prix circuit which combines aspects of the famous Indy 500 oval with a twisty infield track.
Hisao Suganuma, Technical Manager: The Indianapolis circuit consists of two major sections: one is the very high speed oval section and the other, an infield track with a series of tight corners. Together with its relatively smooth surface, the nature of the circuit means we have selected tyres from the mid to soft compound range. While this enables Bridgestone to gives its teams sufficient grip in the infield, we have also had to ensure these compounds will be able to give optimum performance on the high speed section where we can expect heat generation to increase. So, the key challenge for this race has been to provide soft tyres with good heat durability – something I think we have done. Weather, too, has been an important consideration for us this weekend. The race is taking place approximately three months earlier than in previous years and consequently we expect higher track temperatures.
Furthermore, our short term forecast suggests we can expect mixed weather conditions this weekend which may mean our wet weather tyres may get their first proper outing of the year. And finally, we have seen a number of different strategies employed by the teams this year so it will be interesting to see what happens but I generally expect to see the majority of teams going for three stops. However, as we’ve seen already, two stops, three stops, Bridgestone’s teams are capable of taking wins and points with either.