British GP: Bridgestone Friday practice notes

Bridgestone runners set for British GP

Bridgestone Motorsport's four teams: Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro, Sauber Petronas, Jordan Ford and Wilux Minardi Cosworth; have been hard at work on day one of the British Grand Prix. Despite weather forecasts to the contrary, the teams enjoyed two, dry one-hour sessions and spent this time evaluating their two tyre choices and setting their cars up for the forthcoming Grand Prix.

Last year's British GP winner Rubens Barrichello set the fastest time of 1m19.138s in the first of the day's sessions with teammate Michael Schumacher and Sauber's Felipe Massa and Giancarlo Fisichella joining him in the top ten. However, it was Fisichella who went on to set the fastest Bridgestone time of the day with a 1m18.660s which was just 0.005 seconds off the overall fastest time set by Kimi Raikkonen. The Sauber pair look set to be a force to contend with this weekend.

Hisao Suganuma, Bridgestone Motorsport Technical Manager:

"We had two dry sessions today and all our teams have tried both their tyre specifications. The Bridgestone runners have been setting competitive and consistent times although the track was still green. The Saubers in particular look strong this weekend. So now we will evaluate all the tyres and the data from today's running before advising our teams which of their two specifications we recommend for qualifying and the race on Sunday. But so far, we look in good shape."

Ross Brawn, Technical Director of Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro:

"We're a little back to front because we ran on fresh tyres this morning and stayed on the used tyres this afternoon because the forecast was for bad weather which doesn't seem to have come. So we're a bit out of line with the other cars but the car's handling reasonably well and as always, we've got plenty of data on the tyres so we'll look through that this evening. The Bridgestone tyres seem nice and consistent so I think we're going to have a good race on Sunday."

-bridgestone-