Challenging day for Bridgestone
12/06/2005
After encouraging practice results with strong and steady performances, all three Bridgestone teams in the Moto GP category ran into difficulties in today’s Catalunya Grand Prix.
With a determined ride to ninth position, Kawasaki star Shinya Nakano was the one rider from the Bridgestone quad to finish within the top ten of the race.
Ducati riders Carlos Checa and Loris Capirossi dropped back to eleventh and 12th position, a dissapointing finish from their great success last weekend in Mugello with Capirossi’s first podium finish of the year. Whereas Suzuki’s former world champion Kenny Roberts still managed to take a point in 15th position, his team-mate John Hopkins retired with nine laps to go. German Kawasaki rider Alex Hofmann came in for a tyre change and finished the race in 17th position.
During the official pre-season testing session in March, Bridgestone had gathered data to modify its tyres to match the new tarmac of the Catalunya track, that had been re-surfaced back in December last year. Since that test session, much effort was made to solve the problems encountered, and for the front tyre, Bridgestone had been able to come up with the right solution.
But for the rear tyre, Catalunya’s new tarmac remained a tough challenge as performance level decreased on the right side during the race. The tyres selected by all teams were hard compound tyres, made for the ultra-fast main straight, and for the sweeping right turns, with rider’s safety as a top priority, but was not sufficient enough in terms of durability and grip consistency. Bridgestone’s engineers immediately started to analyse all race tyres in their mobile engineering facility, and will air-freight the tyres back to Japan for further analysis, in order to address the problems as quickly as possible.
Shinya Nakano - Kawasaki Racing Team - 9th position
“I had a great start and found a good race rhythm immediately. I found myself behind Colin Edwards, I could match his speed, and I could even see the top guys in the group ahead of us for quite some time. But from mid-race on, my rear wheel started to slide, and it got increasingly difficult to control the bike. That’s why Troy Bayliss managed to sneak past me towards the end. But at least, I went faster than in practice, and we were able to show that we were right on track with the set-up of our bike!”
Akira Nishimura - General Manager Motorcycle Racing - Bridgestone Motorsport
“That was a bitter day for us. We have done a lot of testing and tried our best to come up with a solution for thistrack, but still, our riders ran into difficulties over the race distance, and suffered rear tyre durability and performance problems. Obviously, there is a lot of work left to do for us. We need to analyse and understand the relationship between tyre durability and the new tarmac of the Catalunya circuit, and we need to come up with results and a solution quickly. We will do everything possible to get back on track for the next race in Assen, and to enable our riders to fight on the highest level again. ”
Bridgestone Results:
9. Shinya Nakano (JPN) Kawasaki, 44.03,125, 11. Carlos Checa (SPA) Ducati, 44.16,844, 12. Loris Capirossi (ITA) Ducati, 44.20,351, 5., 15.Kenny Roberts (USA) Suzuki, 44.40,218, 17. Alex Hofmann (GER) Kawasaki, 43.43,269, DNF: John Hopkins (USA) Suzuki