Bridgestone starts 2003 in earnest

Bridgestone tyres took to the track for the first time this year at the Spanish circuit of Jerez this week (7-10 January) at an extended four-day test. The Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro cars of test drivers, Luca Badoer and Luciano Burti were the only Bridgestone shod cars present and the pair set the pace for much of the test.

Whilst Bridgestone concentrated mainly on wet tyre testing due to the changeable weather conditions on the first three days in Jerez, a final day of intensive dry tyre testing was also achieved.

Hisao Suganuma, Bridgestone Motorsport's technical manager was encouraged by the first outing of the year, commenting: "Luca and Luciano both provided some good feedback and this first test of the year has consequently produced some extremely valuable data for us - in particular with reference to our wet tyres. This data will now be sent back to our Technical Centre in Japan. We are happy that the different specification tyres performed as expected and we now have a clearer indication of our direction for future development."

Regarding the rain affected test Mr Suganuma continued: "We took a total of fifteen specifications of tyre to Jerez but we only had the opportunity to test our high priority tyres because of the weather conditions. However, the fact that we had three days of rain giving us natural wet track conditions is always more useful than simulated scenarios."

One full day of dry testing was achieved after the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro team decided to extend the test by one day enabling Bridgestone to conduct some productive dry tyre test runs.

The next big test of the season will see Bridgestone testing with a vengeance in ten days time (20-24 January) in Barcelona. Several Bridgestone supplied cars are expected to be running at the circuit including those of the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro team and Lucky Strike B.A.R Honda team. During these dates, the Sauber Petronas team are expected to be conducting their test at Valencia.

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