Bridgestone racing tyre technology, across the categories and to the road…

Bridgestone Motorsport’s Potenza racing tyres grace every one of the 22 Formula One cars on the grid for a Grand Prix, but F1 is not the only area of motorsport where there are tyres produced by Bridgestone.

Karting, the GP2 Series, MotoGP, the IndyCar Series (with the Firestone brand), Champ Car, Japanese Super GT and Formula Nippon are all top level motorsport series in which Bridgestone has a heavy involvement.

Despite the differences between these disciplines, there is a high level of interaction between those working on the development of tyres in each of these areas.

“We are called Bridgestone Motorsport and this means all our motorsport comes under one umbrella,” explains Kees van de Grint, Bridgestone Motorsport Head of Track Engineering Operations. “This means that the Bridgestone philosophy of how to design a competition tyre is applied across every category.”

As well as the same outlook and approach, Bridgestone’s motorsport operation is a close-knit affair where many of the top-level staff have worked in many of the divisions during their time at Bridgestone.

“An important factor in maintaining our approach is that the key people have grown up with the Bridgestone philosophy, so when we look to a particular category we only have to adjust the details to the particular conditions that exist,” says van de Grint.

“Because the same key people have been involved for so long, it is not difficult to have discussions between those working on different categories, whether it be kart, GT, motorcycle, Champ Car or IndyCar, as we know each other well and have worked in the many categories ourselves.

“For example, I work as Head of Track Engineering Operations in Formula One, but also I take care of European and World Championship karting for Bridgestone, both in a racing and testing capacity.”

In terms of how the engineers work to develop Bridgestone’s tyres, it’s a case of regular communication and access to reports created in whatever category.

“Our level of cooperation is very deep,” explains Hirohide Hamashima, Bridgestone Motorsport Director of Motorsport Tyre Development.

“For example, three times a year we have meetings with our American division at Firestone RTD (Race Tyre Development) so we can fully understand what each department is doing. Outside of that there are regular emails and telephone calls.

“In Japan, our development team regularly has meetings between those who work on the kart tyres or GT or Formula Nippon tyres. These are all controlled out of the same department, so communication between the engineers is very frequent.

“Our reports from each category are available for any of our engineers so they can look at all of the technical developments in each category.”

Whilst the approach is to a common formula, and there are many similarities between the racing tyres that Bridgestone Motorsport produces around the world, not everything is the same.

“There are differences between the tyres. For example, kart tyres are cross ply and our other tyres are radial,” confirms Hamashima.

No matter what the category, the aim for success is the goal. There are many factors that go into a successful racing tyre, and this is an area where Bridgestone strives hard to push forward its knowledge and technology.

“The success of this mission comes not only from the compound of rubber we use in the tyre, because construction is very important too,” explains Hamashima.

“If we have a high grip compound but the construction is wrong the tyre will not work. Vice versa – if we had a good construction, but the compound was wrong, the tyre wouldn’t work. This means it is a delicate balance to find, and this is a crucial area for producing a good race tyre.”

Its participation in Formula One has helped all of Bridgestone’s race tyre departments. “Until last season we were developing our Formula One tyres for every race and were always pushing forward with new technology,” says Hamashima.

“We were in a competitive situation, and we exchanged this knowledge with all our categories to make the competitive performance improve across the range.”

It’s not just Bridgestone’s racing tyres that benefit from this process: it’s Bridgestone’s road tyres too.

“Both passenger car and motorsport departments are exchanging information very frequently. For example, in times of competition, the F1 department required input from all of our technical departments to focus on us winning, and this benefits all of Bridgestone.”