Formula One news

Tyre rules made for exciting racing - Bridgestone

Bridgestone's director of motorsport tyre development Hirohide Hamashima says the decision to force teams to use both tyre compounds during the race each weekend was an inspired one and led to some very exciting racing in 2007.

"I think this has made for some exciting racing and has meant that teams had to use different strategies," said Hamashima. "This regulation also provided us with quite a challenge though as we had to mark the tyres after we had already made and shipped them. The need for this came about as a result of a late regulation change to make each compound distinguishable and we followed the FIA's recommendation for a white spot at the first race of the season in Melbourne."

"However, it was soon apparent that this was not visible enough and we ran with a white band on the tyres from the Malaysian Grand Prix," he added. "We were helped by the pen manufacturer, who created a new pen for us which was exactly the width of the tyre grooves. Consequently, we were able to mark the tyres much more quickly than we could initially and we thank Teranishi Chemical Industry for their help with that."

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