Bridgestone Warns about Severe New Silverstone Track

Coming to Silverstone, one could say that Japanese tire maker Bridgestone would have no problem providing the F1 teams with a solid standard/option tire for the British Grand Prix. However, as most of you already know by now, this weekend's race will feature a different layout as compared to the previous two years, so some surprises might appear in terms of tire wear.

While insisting that they have already evaluated the level of tire wear on the new Arena layout and everything will be OK this weekend, Bridgestone gave the teams a few pieces of advice regarding track behavior for their tires. According to Bridgestone Director of Motorsport Tire Development, Hirohide Hamashima, the new track will be much more severe on the tires than before.

“We know Silverstone very well from so many races here in the past, however now we have the challenge of a new layout. The track was previously one of the most severe for the tyres in terms of layout and circuit roughness on the calendar. The new layout, if anything, makes it more punishing, and certainly too severe to bring our super soft compound,” said Hamashima.

“The additional straight means that the average speed should be higher than before. Entering the new section, the right hand turn at Abbey should create high lateral forces,” added the Japanese official.

He also revealed that much of the development work on the tires to be used at Silverstone this weekend – the hard and soft compounds will be available in Great Britain – was conducted based on the information gathered from the recent British GP in the MotoGP championship. Bridgestone are also supplying tires to the MotoGP series, whose British round on the new Arena layout happened on June 18.

“We are hopeful of a good spectacle with the soft and hard compound tires and certainly will learn a lot from the new configuration,” said Hamashima.