Bridgestone tested a new tyre on Monday following the Catalunyan Grand Prix, this tyre may be used
at Phillip Island later in the season.
Tyre manufactures Bridgestone were pleased with the performance of their
asymmetric tyres at the Gran Premi Cinzano de Catalunya, leading them to on Monday provide all riders testing with a new specification
tyre for Phillip Island which is another track where the emphasis is place on one side of the tyre. With a total of 15 MotoGP
riders present after the race for the Monday test it gave the Japanese tyre giants a chance to work on a tyre which they have
in mind for the visit to Australia in October.
“Phillip Island is a very
demanding circuit, especially on the left side of the tyres, and we are thinking about modifying the specifications just for
that race, for stability on the left side,” said Bridgestone’s Tohru Ubukata. “That’s why we have
brought new specification here (for the Barcelona test), to try and find the direction for our development. We have provided
this new experimental tyre for all the riders and most of them tried this new specification.”
“The track and ambient temperatures between here and Phillip Island are very different but the
tyre temperature itself is very similar, so we believe this was a good circuit to test for the Australia specification,”
Mr Ubukata added.
Mr Ubukata who is Bridgestone’s Motorcycle Race Tyre
Development Manager, was also pleased by the performance of the special tyres his firm provided at round six for the GP weekend
itself, adding “As we expected our asymmetric tyre worked quite well here in Barcelona and actually this is not the
first time for us to use this type of specification.
It is the first time since we have had the one-make rule, but in the past we usually used this kind of specification.
At some circuits we have to use asymmetrics, and we will also provide them at Sachsenring and Indianapolis, for example. Asymmetric
layouts need asymmetric tyres.”
