British GP Bridgestone Race Report

Silverstone, July/ 11/ 1999 1999 BRITISH GRAND PRIX - RACE

Britons battle in Britain

Filling the first two places in a tense British Grand Prix, the two British drivers of the McLaren and Ferrari teams thrilled their home fans with a battle that lasted throughout more than half the 60 laps. For race winner David Coulthard, who described it as the 'most satisfying' victory of his career, there was the pleasure of being able to deliver a convincing victory after Mika Hakkinen's sister car was withdrawn with damaged in the rear suspension. Following a serious accident at the first start in which Michael Schumacher sustained leg injuries, Eddie Irvine carried all of Ferrari's hopes into the race and closed to within two seconds of the race winner in the final laps. Ralf Schumacher, rejoicing in the freshly improved handling of his revised Williams, maintained family honour with his second 3rd place of the year, fighting off a tough challenge from the Jordan of his fellow-countryman Heinz-Harald Frentzen.

Yoshihiko Ichikawa, Bridgestone Motorsport Technical Manager: "With track temperatures reaching 36 degrees during the race, the Soft tyres suffered from a reasonable level of degradation, which is what we anticipated after the test here. We are very sorry about Michael Schumacher's accident, which took one of the best drivers out of a very close struggle today. But we were also thrilled to see such a close race between McLaren and Ferrari. We hope this continues in the coming races."

Luca Baldisserri, Irvine's Engineer, Ferrari Team: "The car was pretty well balanced, especially considering the very strong cross-wind which was blowing in the opposite direction from the test. As a result, the lap times in the race were much slower than we had expected. Unfortunately at the first stop Eddie came to a halt one metre after his mark, so it was a struggle to get the fuel nozzle in. That cost us five seconds and our track position to Coulthard, which we could not recover because the second stint was quite short and we had to put in quite a lot of fuel for the final run, which made the car quite heavy. The Bridgestone Soft tyres performed just as well as we expected."

Test in Monza Bridgestone will be at the Monza circuit next week at the fifth FOA-organised test of the season. All the Formula One teams will be attending this test, which is scheduled for July 13, 14 and 15. Soft and Medium compounds will be supplied to all the teams.

TEMPERATURES        AIR        TRACK        WEATHER 
Morning                19:-20:        24:-25:        Sunny - dry        
Afternoon        24:-25:        36:-34:        Sunny - dry