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Bridgestone's super soft tyre provided the grip for Red Bull Racing driver
Mark Webber to qualify on his first ever Formula One pole position for
tomorrow's German Grand Prix at Nurburgring.
Webber set a time of 1min 32.230secs, just over a tenth faster than Brawn GP
Formula 1 Team driver Rubens Barrichello. Jenson Button (Brawn GP Formula 1
Team) went third fastest. Notably, Adrian Sutil and Force India achieved
their highest ever qualifying with seventh.
Bridgestone's new intermediate tyre was used by a number of competitors
during the qualifying session in Q2, when rainfall visited the circuit a
number of times. Vodafone McLaren Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton used the
super soft Bridgestone to go fastest in the morning session with a time of
1min 31.121secs.
Q&A with Hirohide Hamashima - Bridgestone Director of Motorsport Tyre
Development
What was significant about today's running?
"Today was very interesting and what an exciting way for Mark Webber to
achieve his first ever pole position. The weather was cold, and then we had
the additional difficulty for making tyre choice of the rain falling during
parts of qualifying too. This was a difficult day for the drivers behind the
wheel and the team strategists on the pit wall, but both Red Bull and Brawn
achieved good results."
What are the tyre strategy considerations for tomorrow's race?
"Anyone who is at Nurburgring will tell you that the weather is going to be
the primary consideration and a lot of time tomorrow will be spent looking
at the sky and wondering what will happen next. Two years ago we had a very
exciting race here with very variable weather, and tomorrow we might have
something similar. If it is dry and cold, then the Bridgestone super soft
could be the preferred race tyre. If it is wet, then competitors will have
to match their tyre choices from the Bridgestone wet, intermediate and dry
tyres to the track conditions at that time. This is a very difficult task if
the weather is variable, but very exciting too." |
