The problem does not seem to be the Bridgestone tyres themsleves. Ferrari finished a strong second, Massa could have done better had he not spun, and both Williams cars finished in the points. All these cars were on Bridgestones.

It's pretty clear that from the comments Mike Gascoyne has made all weekend, that Toyota are having difficulty making these tyres work with this particular car. However, if he and the rest of team are saying they do not know the reason why this is happening, then as an outsider, I dare not speculate why it is happening either.

Because I like to think, I'll speculate anyway. If it is just a problem with car setup, then that would be a problem that they could clear up pretty straight forwardly over time. But if is an actual problem with the car itself, like the design of the suspension, or the design of the whole car itself, then it might be up in the air into how long it would take to rectify that situation.

If we go on the premise that Toyota is getting tyres that are similar to what Ferrari and Williams are getting, then the issue is not with the tyres themselves, but with how Toyota's car is using them. Both Ferrari and Willliams were able to compete with the Michelins in the Bahrain race.

So some questions are, why are the tyres not working at their optimal thermal parameters, and what must be done to get them to work in such a way. These are some of the issues the team seems to be addressing when they say they do not know what the problem is. A question I would like to know is, what are they doing about it now, and what are they going to do about it in the near future.

When I read that Mike Gascoyne said the tyres "looked brand new" after the pitstops, the impression I got was that he seemed to be implying that the tyres had not been "worked" enough.

A thing that comes to mind is the suspension system. It's possible that this suspension system was designed from experience with Michelin data, and the team did not have the Bridgestone data to know that they had to design a system that worked the tyres harder in order for them to work properly.

If the problem does turn out to be the suspension, I'm curious as to how long it would to take to design one that would work the tyres harder, and how long it would take to test it, have it approved by the FIA, and then race with it. If this were to be the problem, then Toyota's chances of actually winning a race might all depend on this.

This is all conjecture, of course.

Maybe what Toyota should do is, if they have not done already, test the TF105 with Bridgestone tyres. I am talking about original TF105, the one they used during most of the 2005 season, and not the "B" version. The original TF105 seemed to use up its Michelin tyres, particulary at the rear. If this car worked its Michelin tyres harder, maybe they could test if it would also work the Bridgestone tyres harder.

Now, if it turned out the TF105 did use the Bridgestones better than the TF106, perhaps they could switch back to it when they actually race, at least as a short term solution. It might pose some issues, such as having to re-establish the relationship with the previous damper supplier (Koni I think), and maybe having to start with last year's aerodynamics, or a hastily revised version of it (I'm not sure if they could just put the current aerodynamic package on the old car and have it work. Maybe they could, but I don't know).

Personally, I have never really liked the front suspension on the current Toyota, the one that was introduced on the TF105B. To me, it just seems so "bulky". In my mind, I think to myself that they had so much success with the original front suspension, why switch to this one? So far, this new front suspension has not brought in good results this season! I thought the front of the TF105 much more responsive, and that seemed to be a good thing. It had much thinner suspension arms, and it allowed the TF105 to react better. It also had the lower arms attached to the keel, which allowed for a wider range of adjustments, including camber angles.

The rear of the TF105 used a "rotary" damping system as opposed to a "linear" one. I do not know what the difference is between the two. But since they had had difficulty with the rear of the car using up its Michelin tyres in the past, perhaps the previous rear suspension would be a good thing now, as they want to work the rear Bridgestone tyres as hard as they can, in order to get heat into them.

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