Bridgesone British Qualifying Review

Bridgestone's soft tyre provided the grip for Red Bull Racing driver Sebastian Vettel to qualify on his third pole position of the season for tomorrow's British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

Vettel set a time of 1min 19.509secs, just over three tenths faster than Brawn GP Formula 1 Team driver Rubens Barrichello. Mark Webber (Red Bull Racing) went third fastest.

Bridgestone's new intermediate tyre was used for the first time in a grand prix session today when it was used by a number of competitors during the morning practice session. AT&T Williams driver Nico Rosberg used the soft Bridgestone to go fastest in this session with a time of 1min 18.899secs.

Q&A with Hirohide Hamashima - Bridgestone Director of Motorsport Tyre Development

What was significant about today's running?
"Today we saw the full weather range of Bridgestone's Formula One tyres used in front of a very big Saturday crowd at Silverstone. Although the track was only damp at the beginning of the first session, the intermediate and wet tyre were used, as well as both dry Bridgestone's. This was good preparation for any weather tomorrow. In qualifying we saw some very fast lap times, with Sebastian Vettel setting the day's fastest time using the hard tyre in Q2 and also setting pole with the soft tyre. Silverstone is a high speed circuit which the current generation cars and our slick tyres are suiting very well."

What are the tyre strategy considerations for tomorrow's race?
"First and foremost the weather will be a very big factor here, just as we have seen so many times at Silverstone. If it is wet like last year there will be the difficult decisions of whether to use the intermediate or wet Bridgestone, or decide if it is dry enough to use the hard or soft dry tyre. If there is no rain and the temperature is cool then the hard tyre is taking around 3-4 laps to get up to speed, so the soft tyre could be the favoured starting tyre. There is good potential for an exciting race tomorrow."

Stats of the Day 
Practice Three 10:00 - 11:00
Driver             Team                    Time        Tyre
Nico Rosberg AT&T Williams 		   1m 18.899s  S
Kazuki Nakajima AT&T Williams 		   1m 19.102s  S
Jarno Trulli Panasonic Toyota Racing 	   1m 19.125s  S

Qualifying 13:00 - 14:00
Driver             Team                    Time        Tyre
Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing 	   1m 19.509s  S
Rubens Barrichello Brawn GP Formula 1 Team 1m 19.856s  S
Mark Webber Red Bull Racing 		   1m 19.868s  S

Compounds used: Hard / Soft
Temperatures 	   Ambient  Track   Weather
AM - Practice 3    15C-17C  17C-20C Sunny / Partly Cloudy
PM - Qualifying    17C-18C  21C-23C Partly Cloudy