The tires allocated by Bridgestone for the summer races

Bridgestone announced that there will be fewer differences in its compounds for the Hungarian, European, Belgian, and Italian Grand Prix.

Since the beginning of the year, Bridgestone has tried to supply two completely different compounds for each race. For example, the super-softs coupled with the mediums or the softs with the hards. This system, which was requested by the Formula 1 teams, was designed to create a greater variation in performance between the cars and thus encourage improvements for the race.

However, Hirohide Hamashima, director of tire development at Bridgestone, said it would not be obvious to have a large disparity on the circuits of Hungaroring, Valencia, Spa, and Monza, compared to the first GPs of the season.

« Hungary is a circuit where there is a need for soft-type tires, » he explained. « This is also true for street races like in Monaco where super-soft and soft tires were used. This will also be the case in Valencia for the European Grand Prix. »

At Spa, the temperatures can be reasonable. This is why hard compounds can cause difficulties, and the super-softs are too soft for this track. We will therefore provide the teams with the soft and medium compounds.

« The same applies to Monza for the hard tires because there will be too great a difference between these and the soft ones. Thus, we will bring the soft and medium ones. »

Out of eight races since the beginning of the season, the only time Bridgestone used two similar compounds was the Monaco GP.

Reminder: For the German Grand Prix, the chosen tires are the Super-Soft and Medium compounds.