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Heritage
Moto GP
Bridgestone began supplying tyres for motorcycle racing in the 1980s, starting with the 250cc and 500cc classes of the All Japan Championships. Tadayuki Okada won Bridgestone's first series championship in 1989. At the Suzuka Grand Prix in the 1987 season, Honda works rider Dai Kobayashi entered as a wild card in the 250cc class and took a stunning victory to give Bridgestone its first podium in a world championship motorcycle race.
Bridgestone has continued to enjoy competitive success in WGP 125cc racing, having won more than 20 titles to testify to the capabilities of the tyres.
The better the results in the 125cc class the more keen the technical staff were to compete in the top-level 500cc category, today's MotoGP class. But even the step up from 125cc to 250cc demanded clearing many technical hurdles, ascending to the heights of 500cc would require even greater technological progress.
But there was to be no step-by-step move to 500cc. In 2000 Keisuke Suzuki, then a Bridgestone Board Member, now Advisor, was impressed by the 150,000 enthusiastic fans he saw packing the Spanish GP. The daring decision to begin developing tyres for 500cc competition was made.
With the cooperation of Honda Racing (HRC), a bike was borrowed for testing. The project team was christened "Rey Project" - 'Rey" means "king" in Spanish.
The project team was assembled from staff who had no experience working with racing tyre development so would bring no preconceived notions to the effort. The goal was to take a more scientific approach to tyre development. In January 2001 the first track tests were conducted at Jerez in Spain. To accompany real-world testing, a drum tester specifically designed for motorbikes was created to scientifically develop and evaluate tyres. Eight months after the first tests the decision was made to enter the 2002 championship.
Bridgestone certainly received a baptism of fire as the differences between testing and actual racing in the two-wheeled world were soon glaringly obvious. Testing had been conducted at five or six circuits where GP events were held but some races were on circuits where the tyres had never been tested. MotoGP had also made significant changes to its regulations in 2002, allowing 4-stroke and 2-stroke engines to run in the same races.
Teams using Bridgestone tyres had 2-stroke engines, and the inferior power compared to 4-stroke competitors was undeniable. The losses piled up, but in the latter half of the season Bridgestone gradually started to see some results. In qualifying for the last race, the Australian Grand Prix, Bridgestone-shod bikes took pole, third and fourth positions on the front row of the grid.
In 2003 all the Bridgestone-shod bikes boasted four-stroke engines and Japanese rider Makoto Tamada was racing for Honda. The second year of the partnership between Bridgestone and Proton showed promise. In his debut year, Tamada produced some notable performances finishing third at the Brazilian Grand Prix and fourth in Italy.
Tamada's two finishes in the upper ranks proved that Bridgestone's tyre performance was approaching the top level. But the hurdles to claiming a world championship remained a formidable challenge.
Bridgestone achieved the win it had been looking for when Tamada swept past a stream of riders, including reigning champion Valentino Rossi, to win the Brazilian Grand Prix in Rio on his Camel Honda. Tamada's eventual two victories and three pole positions in 2004 exceeded Bridgestone’s expectations. Ducati joined the list of manufacturers supplied by Bridgestone for the 2005 season with two victories for Loris Capirossi the highlight of the year.
2006 saw Bridgestone round off its strongest season to date. With a total of four victories, 11 individual podium positions and six pole positions, it became clear that significant technical advances had been made in Bridgestone’s fifth MotoGP season.
The final race of the year in Valencia perfectly encapsulated Bridgestone’s successful season with Ducati duo Troy Bayliss and Loris Capirossi taking the team and Bridgestone’s first ever one-two after what was a faultless weekend. Capirossi’s victories in Jerez, Brno and Motegi enabled him to take an excellent third in the championship. His season-opening Spanish success also marked the first ever victory on European soil by a Bridgestone-shod rider.
For 2007, Bridgestone increases its team portfolio with the introduction of Gresini Honda and Pramac D’Antin to the ever-growing Bridgestone family. Alongside Ducati, Kawasaki and Suzuki, these new teams have already provided Bridgestone with invaluable testing feedback for the coming season. Meticulous race preparations will be more important than ever before with the additional introduction of new tyre regulations, which stipulate that each rider is allowed a maximum of 31 tyres per weekend. Supplying four different manufacturers will undoubtedly provide Bridgestone with its toughest challenge yet at the pinnacle of motorcycle racing, but Bridgestone is confident in its endeavour to achieve even more MotoGP success.
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