Formula One’s tyre supplier, Bridgestone, has announced the final four compound sets it will supply the teams with at the Japanese, Korean, Brazilian and Abu Dhabi races.
They have taken a conservatice approach to all four races, especially the unknown Korean GP, which will feature the soft and hard compounds, as will the preceeding Japanese GP.
The latter two races will see the use of the super-soft and medium compounds.
Hirohide Hamashima, Bridgestone Head of Motorsport Tyre Development, commented on the allocations: “The most interesting question for these final allocations is which tyres will we bring to Korea? As always for a new race we work closely with the FIA, the circuit and the teams to reach our decision but in addition to all this information we always have safety in mind so our allocation for the first race in Korea will naturally be on the conservative side.
“The tyres for Korea are currently being shipped to the track and we are very interested to see this new facility when we go there in seven weeks time.
“Suzuka puts the tyres through a tough workout so we have the harder combination of hard and soft, whilst Sao Paulo and Yas Marina suit the softer combination of super soft and medium. Due to the nature of the tracks, there were no further opportunities for a hard – super soft allocation, although we did evaluate this after the lessons learnt at Hockenheim.”
The Abu Dhabi GP will be Bridestone’s last, with Pirelli taking over from 2011 onwards.