Having already announced that they'll bring the soft and hard compound for the Australian Grand Prix this weekend, Bridgestone's head of motorsport tire development, Hirohide Hamashima today went on to announce the allocation for the Malaysian, Chinese, Spanish, Turkish and Monaco events as well.
According to Hamashima, Bridgestone found it hard to reach a compromise in terms of tire allocation for the upcoming events, especially since the weather conditions for each of those circuits are yet to be determined. Nevertheless, following the useful feedback from Bahrain, when the tires behaved great and helped the teams to ease through a one-pit strategy, the Japanese company decided to allocate the tires based on track condition.
“Shanghai and Barcelona are both quite severe circuits and Istanbul, as we have seen in the past is particularly severe. This is why we are bringing the hardest allocation, while still leaving a gap in our range between the two compounds. For Monaco this year we will have a gap in the allocation too, which is a change from the two softest compounds which we have brought here previously,” said Hamashima.
“We have a harder prime compound for Monaco because of the heavier fuel loads and longer stint lengths that the current rules encourage. We believe this allocation should provide a reasonable and interesting difference between prime and option tires for this event,” added the Japanese official.
The overall tire allocation for the upcoming 6 grands prix are as followed:
Australian GP – Soft/Hard
Malaysian GP – Soft/Hard
Chinese GP – Soft/Hard
Spanish GP – Soft/Hard
Monaco GP – Super Soft/Medium
Turkish GP – Soft/Hard
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