30/08/2009
NEWS STORY
Kimi Raikkonen used a soft - medium - soft tyre strategy to score his first race win of the season after a thrilling and tactical Belgian Grand Prix at Spa Francorchamps.
Raikkonen finished less than a second ahead of pole-sitter Giancarlo Fisichella who achieved Force India's best ever result with second, using a soft-soft-medium tyre strategy. Sebastian Vettel used a medium-medium-soft tyre strategy to finish third.
Hiroshi Yasukawa - Director of Bridgestone Motorsport: "Congratulations to Kimi Raikkonen and Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro for taking their first win of the year. Congratulations also to Giancarlo Fisichella and Force India for their fine second place. Today we saw a very exciting race, where Bridgestone's tyres provided a vital ingredient. This is the home race for Bridgestone Europe, which is based in Brussels, so it is very good to have such a fine display from this wonderful sport for us here at the track, and for so many television viewers around the world."
Hirohide Hamashima - Bridgestone Director of Motorsport Tyre Development: "This has been a very interesting weekend from a tyre perspective, and this has provided a very exciting race. The medium and soft Bridgestone tyres were quite evenly matched for overall performance, and each podium finisher used a different strategy to achieve their result. Which tyre was best for which team depended on car characteristics, set-up and driver preference so we saw a good range of strategy choices. We did see some very small blisters today for the first time this season, so we can say that the tyres were worked hard at this track. We will use the same tyre allocation at Monza, so it will be interesting to see how the teams translate what they have learnt here to the next race."