Bridgestone assess Indy performance

Last weekend’s Indianapolis Grand Prix was one of the most challenging of the season. Each day had very different weather conditions and afterwards Bridgestone offered an assessment of their performance throughout the weekend.

Masao Azuma, their chief engineer, said:

“Indianapolis is a very demanding circuit and as well as being severe on tyres, the grip level can vary quite a lot over the weekend,” said Azuma. “This year however, although the grip of the tarmac was low during the first sessions, overall the conditions were quite good for this circuit, even with track temperatures reaching well into the fifty degree Celsius range.

“If you look at the track temperatures on Friday afternoon compared to the race, the difference is almost twenty degrees Celsius yet tyre performance remained very good in these highly variable conditions, so I am quite pleased with this. During the race we had some light drizzle but even so, there was a new Circuit Best Lap and overall race time record set and the riders were able to push at 100% throughout the race. This is a good outcome for us and shows that our tyre allocation for this year’s Indianapolis Grand Prix was well suited to this circuit.”

One of the biggest issues throughout the year for Bridgestone has been finding a balance between the Open class runners and the Factory class runners. The advantage offered by the softer tyre has been decreased as the season has worn on and in Indianapolis Bridgestone felt they had struck the right balance.

“We didn’t have to change too much this year as last year’s Indianapolis tyre allocation performed quite well. However, given the increased performance of the open class machines this year, we revised our allocation so that the soft option rear slick was closer to the medium rear in its composition. This change worked well as many open class riders were able to use the soft compound rear slick for the race with good results.

“For the front tyre, the availability of the new hard compound front slick at Indianapolis was a good addition to our tyre allocation and was well received by the riders. So there were minor changes made compared to last year’s Indianapolis Grand Prix, but the changes made had positive results.”