Bridgestone European GP Qualifying Review

Bridgestone's super soft tyre provided the grip for Vodafone McLaren Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton to qualify on pole position with a time of 1min 39.498secs for tomorrow's European Grand Prix in Valencia.

Bridgestone's soft and super soft tyres coped well with track temperatures of up to 45 degrees Celsius today, and the track surface improvement saw a corresponding tyre performance improvement, meaning lap times continued to fall.

Force India driver Adrian Sutil set the fastest time in the morning practice session, using the super soft tyre to set a time of 1min 39.143secs. Running was suspended for 25 minutes of the session whilst the circuit surface was treated after Vettel's car dropped fluid.

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

What was significant about today's running?
"Today we saw a further improvement from the track, even though we did lose almost half an hour of running in the morning practice session. There was a good improvement in tyre performance from both tyres related to the track improvement so we have good confidence for tomorrow. To see a KERS car on pole makes things interesting, as it is difficult to imagine a non-KERS car getting ahead at the start."

What are the tyre strategy considerations for tomorrow's race?
"The super soft tyre is around 0.3-0.4 seconds faster than the soft tyre, however it is more
susceptible to the transverse graining that we see here. The track improvement today however
means that the super soft looks better than it did yesterday for its race duties, so actual strategy choices tomorrow will be interesting. To assist us with data we will analyse the strategies in today's GP2 Series race too. Looking at today's skies, I do not think we will have need of Bridgestone's intermediate and wet tyres for the race."

Stats of the Day 
Practice Three 11:00 - 12:00
Driver             Team                    Time        Tyre
Adrian Sutil 	   Force India F1 Team 	   1m 39.143s  SS 
Kazuki Nakajima    AT&T Williams 	   1m 39.247s  SS
Robert Kubica 	   BMW Sauber F1 Team 	   1m 39.513s  SS

Qualifying 14:00 - 15:00
Driver             Team                    Time        Tyre
Lewis Hamilton 	   Vodafone McLaren	   1m 39.498s  SS
Heikki Kovalainen  Vodafone McLaren	   1m 39.532s  SS
Rubens Barrichello Brawn GP		   1m 39.563s  SS

Compounds used: Soft / Soft Super
Temperatures 	 Ambient  Track	   Weather
Practice AM 	 29C-30C  37C-41C  Sunny
Qualifying PM 	 31C-32C  45C 	   Sunny