F1 Feature - Tyred Out In Japan
08/10/2006
There’s no rest for Bridgestone’s Formula 1 tyre technicians, even at the company’s home race at Suzuka. The Japanese Grand Prix comes just one week after the Chinese GP in Shanghai, making this the fifth back-to-back race of the year and a logistical challenge.
After the cars crossed the line in Shanghai last Sunday, the tyre technicians had to strip all of the tyres used in the race, while at the same time packing up the non-duplicated equipment (race suits and measuring equipment) for the fly-away races into a cargo container. All of which kept Bridgestone’s staff at the Shanghai International Circuit until 2100hrs.
On Monday morning, the container was freighted to Japan and the Bridgestone team members caught a separate flight to Nagoya, before making their way to Suzuka Circuit, ready to begin work on Tuesday morning.
“All the back-to-back races are hard work,” says tyre supervisor, Graham Mitchell, “but this is one of the easiest for us because it’s on the doorstep of our factory in Tokyo. The latest-spec dry tyres don’t need to be flown to the race; they just have a four-hour journey by road.”
To keep costs down, Bridgestone has three lots of equipment that it ships by sea to all the flyaway races. They are all being used for these three end-of-season intercontinental races: one shipment went to China, a second to Japan and a third to Sao Paulo for the season finale.
“Everything has gone very smoothly so far,” continues Mitchell. “When we arrived in the Suzuka paddock earlier on this week, all of our equipment was already here, and as we speak, the container for Brazil is in customs at Sao Paulo.”
The weather has been the only downside to Bridgestone’s home GP weekend. Heavy rain on Friday necessitated the use of wet and extreme wet tyres, which increased the workload of the tyre fitters.
“The problem with Friday’s weather was that it gave the teams very little opportunity to run dry tyres,” says Mitchell. “As a result, they all ran both dry tyre options during Saturday morning practice, which meant that we had to mount more tyres than we would normally for Saturday.”