2010 tyres, the story so far…

Two races have already taken place in one of the most eagerly anticipated seasons in years and as Formula One races towards the third on the 19 race calendar, Bridgestone Director of Motorsport Tyre Development, Hirohide Hamashima, evaluates what’s been learnt so far about tyres.

“From Bridgestone’s perspective we are very happy with the tyre performance that we’ve seen in the first two races.

“Heading to Bahrain for the season opener, we had a very limited amount of data. Pre-season testing was severely limited by the rain we experienced in Spain so these first two races have seen us all very much on a steep learning curve.”

The latest cars are developed around the concept of no refuelling, meaning they are heavier than those used in recent seasons.

“No refuelling means bigger fuel tanks and the cars are around 100kg heavier than last year when full of fuel. This is a big proportion of the car’s weight, but there are other downward loads on the tyres too.

“For instance, when an F1 car is moving there can be around 2000kg of downforce load on the car, and this load is pushing down on the tyres. In the context of load, an additional 100kg is not as big a weight change, however it is a bigger difference in terms of inertia.”

The heavier fuel loads do mean that the race start is very interesting from a tyre performance perspective.

“The race start is when the cars are heaviest, and the tyres at their coolest as the formation lap does not maintain tyre heat. Despite this, we have not encountered any related problems at the start of the first two races, showing that drivers are controlling their cars well in these difficult conditions.”

Pre-season testing took place in cool and frequently wet conditions in Spain, but the first race of the season took place in dry and hot conditions in Bahrain.

“We were happy with tyre performance in Bahrain. Even the super soft compound performed well in the high temperatures, and the new section which was added to the circuit didn’t present any difficulties.

“Bahrain is certainly not one of the most severe circuits on the calendar, but Albert Park where we headed next is more of a challenge - as we saw in 2009.

“It was certainly an interesting weekend. In qualifying we saw how well advanced the latest cars are. Even with the packaging for bigger fuel tanks and their increased minimum weight, Sebastian Vettel was able to set a new lap record of 1min 23.919secs, beating the previous record of 1min 24.408secs set by Michael Schumacher in a competitive tyre environment in 2004.”


“Much of this speed comes because of the incredible car development we have seen, even when the regulations attempt to slow the cars.

“We estimate that downforce levels are now closing to around the same as they were in 2008. Even without the winglets we used to see and narrower rear wings, the evolution in aerodynamic packages for the cars and the presence of multiple diffusers mean that the cars are pushed hard into the road.

“These high loads of downforce have a big effect on the tyres and enable the lateral forces which we see from cornering.

“The contact patch of an F1 tyre with the road when a car is stationary is about the size of a postcard. When that same car is going at 300 km/h, the loads on the tyre change its shape so the contact patch is now around the size of a standard A4 piece of paper.”

The race action in Australia saw the first use of Bridgestone’s intermediate tyre in the 2010 season.

“The intermediate was used extensively in testing, but this was not a good gauge of the potential race performance of this tyre. In testing the objective is very different to the objective in a race, so we are pleased to see a good performance from this tyre in Australia.”

Once the rain stopped at Albert Park, drivers gravitated to the dry tyres, with the soft compound the favoured option.

“The Australian race was very interesting as the option tyre was the favoured race tyre. The cool conditions meant that the lower temperature working range of this tyre worked well especially as the track was not fully dry. The slower lap times, because of the track condition, meant that the tyre could last a very long time when it was managed well.”

Next on the calendar is the Malaysian Grand Prix, a race which held a lot of excitement last season.

“The weather is one factor over which we have very little influence, as we saw in Sepang in 2009 when the rain was very hard, so hard that the race was stopped early. This year the race is slightly earlier, but we could still see rain.

“Also, Malaysia is often very hot and this should mean higher tyre degradation than we saw in Australia, so we are hopeful of another exciting race.”