MotoGP Feature - Bridgestone Primed And Raring To Go
21/01/2008
Bridgestone tyre engineers were eagerly awaiting the start of pre-season testing, anxious to begin the final phase of pre-season development.
There is just a month and a half between the first test and the first GP – and every day will be vital for the Japanese tyre company’s defence of its first MotoGP World Championship, secured by Casey Stoner and the Ducati in 2007.
“Time is very short,” explained Bridgestone’s Manager of Motorcycle Racing Hiroshi Yamada. “This is the first time for Bridgestone to see the new motorcycles.
“Of course the change from the previous year is not so big as from 2006 to 2007” (when engine capacity dropped from 990cc to 800cc). “But we expect all of our manufacturers to have some small changes, which we will see at the first tests at Sepang,” Yamada continued.
“Only then can we begin to develop our latest range of tyres specifically for the character of each new motorcycle. At the same time, there are also some new riders, and we must learn their requirements.”
Bridgestone furnish tyres to factory teams from Ducati, Kawasaki, Suzuki and Yamaha, as well as a satellite Honda team and the newly named Alice team (formerly Pramac d'Antin).
Yamada expects a hard fight back from the rivals defeated by the dominant Stoner-Ducati-Bridgestone combination in 2007, and is aware of the racing axiom – that the second title is always harder than the first.
“We entered MotoGP in 2002, and in our sixth season we achieved the championship. This was of course our target, and we got it. And of course we would like to continue to be champion for the next season.
“We have increased our riders from ten to eleven, and we will have Valentino Rossi. That is very interesting for us – I think very interesting for everybody.
“We have a lot of competition this year, so we cannot take anything for granted,” he said. “We expect the factory Repsol Honda team, on our competitor’s tyres, to be very strong for this season. But we will try our best and push hard.”
Yamada was confident that lap times would continue to fall, after evolutionary improvements to machines and to tyres. With the basic machine similarity last year to this, winter development had aimed at general improvement in the three key areas: traction, side-grip and durability.
But his main concern was more immediate – to use the time best in the short and intense build-up to the first race of the season, at Qatar on March 8/9. “It is not a lot of time. We need to try very hard to get the right tyres for the new bikes and riders in time for the first race,” he concluded.