F1: A white groove for the soft Bridgestones

[Rory Phoulorie]

Saturday 31st March 2007

Bridgestone are set to use a white painted grove to mark their soft compound tyres from next weekend's Malaysian GP onwards.

As of this year all the drivers have to use both soft and hard compound tyres during each and every grand prix. And in order to allow spectators to recognise the different compounds it was decided that the tyres would be marked.

Bridgestone, though, came in for a great deal of criticism following the Australian Grand Prix where their soft compounds were marked with a barely visible white circle.

However, the Japanese tyre manufacturer has been trying various ideas during this week's test session at Sepang, and have opted to paint the second inside groove of their soft tyres white.

This idea, which was tested by Super Aguri's Takuma Sato on Wednesday, proved to be the best solution.

"We are working out a long-term plan as this marking will not be only for the next race," Bridgestone's director of motorsport tyre development Hirohide Hamashima told Autosport.

"Here we have enough time to prepare for the race as we all stay here after the test, but for the races after we have to allocate the work to the tyre fitter from Wednesday onwards. At the moment we are working on it."

Autosport also reported that it could take up to two days for Bridgestone's tyre fitters to paint the white groove onto each tyre prior to the start of the grands prix.

http://www.planet-f1.com/story/0,18954,3213_2028912,00.html

[Plex]