By Bridgestone Press Release
July 3 2004

Today’s rain interrupted practice sessions for the forthcoming French Grand Prix at the Magny-Cours circuit resulted in dry, wet and extreme weather Bridgestone Potenza Formula One tyres being used by the teams today. However, it was Rubens Barrichello’s first session dry weather time of 1:15.487 which stood as fastest overall today with teammate Michael Schumacher setting a time of 1:15.713. By the end of the first morning session, no fewer than seven Bridgestone runners were in the top ten.

The second session was also affected by rain and although some dry tyre testing was done, the FIA has allowed extra time for final tyre decisions to be made. Teams must now submit their choice after the Saturday practice sessions.

Hisao Suganuma, Technical Manager:

"Well, today’s practice sessions were affected by rain which has made it difficult to make any early judgements about the teams’ tyre choices. We did manage to conduct some dry tyre testing this afternoon but will wait until after tomorrow’s practices before drawing any final conclusions. Having said that, it was good to see our teams relishing the wet conditions today. Whatever the weather, we can expect the Bridgestone runners to be competitive."

Ross Brawn, Ferrari Technical Director:

"Obviously the weather has made any dry weather tyre assessment very difficult today and because of this the FIA has deferred the time by which we must decide our specification until after tomorrow’s practices. We expect, therefore, to be testing our two dry weather specifications in tomorrow morning’s practices, after which we will make our final choice. Because the forecast for the weekend is for dry weather we didn’t do any wet tyre running but aside from that we didn’t have any problems."

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