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Bridgestone's
super soft tyre proved to be the fastest rubber on the streets of Monte
Carlo for the first day of the Monaco Grand Prix. In warm and sunny
conditions overlooking the fabulous Monaco harbour, Nico Rosberg set the
day's fastest lap time, a 1min 15.243secs, in his AT&T Williams during the
afternoon practice session.
Track conditions improved throughout the day as rubber was laid on the
street course and the circuit surface was cleared of normal public road
debris. Brawn GP driver Rubens Barrichello was the fastest driver in the
morning session, using the soft compound to set a time of 1min 17.189secs.
The soft and super soft compounds are used here in Monaco, both compounds
being from Bridgestone's low temperature working range of F1 tyres.
Q&A with Hirohide Hamashima - Bridgestone Director of Motorsport Tyre
Development
What was significant about today's running?
"Today was a challenge for all the drivers as the grip level in Monaco is
very difficult to learn, and any mistakes are punished by the barriers.
There are significant sections of resurfacing, however the new surface is
very smooth, just as the older sections of track are, so there is not a
significant difference between the two from a tyre performance perspective.
As a first day at Monaco, we saw the lap times fall dramatically over the
course of the day as the track cleared and the rubber was put down. It was a
good day in terms of gaining data as the weather was fine and the running
was not interrupted. However, we will not see any F1 running here tomorrow,
so it will be interesting to see how the track surface changes for
Saturday."
How do you expect this allocation to work over the weekend?
"Even though these are our softest tyres, drivers will struggle for grip
here due to the unique slippery nature of this track. Despite this, we saw
very good displays from the drivers today with some exceptional car control,
as we would expect of the best drivers in the world. The super soft tyre was
faster than the soft tyre, as we expected. The difference between the two
tyres today was around 0.4 seconds over the fastest lap. Both tyres
delivered their fastest lap on the first or second flying lap, and neither
tyre suffers greatly in terms of wear or degradation because of the low grip
here." |
