Bridgestone Test Summary

Bridgestone concludes day of tyre testing for MotoGP’s 1000cc era

Marco Simoncelli

Photo by: Team Gresini

Bridgestone slick compounds available:

Front: Soft, Medium
Rear (asymmetric): Medium, Hard

Additionally, test tyre specs:

Front: Soft
Rear (asymmetric): Medium

Bridgestone made full use of the official one-day post-race test at the Estoril circuit today, supplying every rider with one test front slick tyre and two specs of rear slick in addition to the normal test allocation. The test was a valuable opportunity for Bridgestone to continue tyre testing, specifically with a view for the 1000cc MotoGP bikes next year.

Whilst the test was for the current 800cc MotoGP machines, fundamental future tyre development work continues but now with a specific practical focus towards tyres for next year’s new engine capacity regulations. As well as a wide operating temperature range, there is an added objective of improving feedback from the tyres and ‘rideability’.

Conditions at Estoril today were good; much better than during the Grand Prix weekend. With only light rain falling overnight, the circuit was much cleaner and, with the extra rubber laid during the races yesterday, grip was much better and this was reflected in the laptimes.

Marco Simoncelli ended the test fastest, setting a best lap 0.7seconds under the lap record, just ahead of Jorge Lorenzo and Casey Stoner. All riders present at the test dedicated time in their busy test schedules to use the new test tyres, although Randy de Puniet and Hector Barbera did not ride today, and Nobuatso Aoki took the place of Alvaro Bautista for the Rizla Suzuki team.

Tohru Ubukata – General Manager, Bridgestone Motorsport Tyre Development Department

“I am very happy with the results of the test at Estoril today. Conditions were good and the laptimes were very fast with Marco heading the field, 0.7seconds faster than the lap record. We brought one new front tyre and two new rear tyres for testing today as we continue preparing for the new engine regulations next year. I must thank all teams and riders for their support today in taking the time to test our tyres and provide to us very valuable data, in particular Casey who despite still suffering from back pain dedicated his afternoon’s running to tyre testing. Rider feedback was good, especially for the new rear tyres, so I can say we have identified the direction of tyre development for the next test and preparation for the 1000cc era is going well.”

-source: bridgestone