TYRE PRO Hirohide Hamashima is the expert to direct any tyre question to

By Derryn Wong in Tokyo, Japan

IN THE FAST lane of Formula One racing, with all its glitz and glamour, sometimes the humble tyre gets overlooked: it’s easy to forget that tyres are a huge part of the performance equation. But Japanese giant Bridgestone is the sole tyre supplier for F1, so isn’t it quite straightforward, we hear you say?

But nothing is ever straight-forward at the highest level of motorsport and particularly so when you’re preparing for one of the newest and highly anticipated tracks of the season.

We’re talking about our very own Marina Bay Circuit of course, which is special because it’s a street circuit (one of three, along with Monaco and Valencia), a new venue on the calendar (the other is Valencia again), it’s one of three counter-clockwise running tracks (Interlagos and Istanbul) and the very first and only night race in F1.

All these special features make the track an especially challenging one to prepare for in terms of tyres. For example, counter-clockwise tracks feature mostly left turns, which put more stress on the outer right tyres.

Singapore combines a tight, high-downforce layout like Monaco with weather like that of Malaysia. The first half of the track features high-speed straights and sweepers, while the second half after the Esplanade has lots of slow-speed ninety degree turns, which means mechanical grip will be a bigger priority over aerodynamic grip.

Hirohide Hamashima is the Director of Bridgestone Motorsport Tyre Development has been involved in motorsport since the early 1980s and has been a key player in making Bridgestone’s intense involvement in many motorsports such as DTM, Indy Car and Formula One.

We caught up with him at Bridgestone’s Technical Centre in Kodaira City, Tokyo for a personal Q&A.

CarBuyer: How does the Bridgestone team go about preparing a tyre for a Grand Prix?
Hamashima: Firstly we go about checking the course layout, then the track surface characteristics. Working with the teams, we then run a simulation of the car and data on its performance is obtained: things like maximum downforce, maximum speed, cornering speed and so on. Only then do we decide on the specifications for every race.

For Valencia and Singapore, new this year, currently we only know the circuit layout so we can only do preliminary simulations with the team. A month or two before the event we can evaluate the surface and other factors then make the final decision. (construction is slated to finish in June)

CB: Can you make any preliminary predictions for Singapore? Would it be a cross between, Monaco and Malaysia for example?
Hamashima: I’ve seen the course layout in March and it’s quite high speed, so maybe we won’t be able to use a super-soft compound like in Monaco because of heat and wear issues.

CB: Do you think it being a night race will complicate matters?
Hamashima: I suspect the temperatures will be around 27 degrees so there won’t be any problem there. More difficult to say is if the tyre temperatures can remain constant over the 300km race distance.

CB: What are the major differences between the prime and option tyres?
Hamashima: The main difference is in compound composition, the option tyre being a little bit more ‘oily’ and thus softer. Also the prime tyre has a slightly higher carbon ratio which makes it harder. Other than that they are
identical in construction. We can’t alter them too radically because the teams need both tyres to work with minor setup changes.

CB: What happens to a tyre after the race weekend?
Hamashima: Some of them are brought back to Japan directly, where we analyse it, looking at things like wear rate, remaining construction strength and so on. The rest are used to make electricity by incineration.

CB: Bridgestone is now the sole tyre supplier for Formula One. Are the challenges still the same, or are they less now with no competition?
Hamashima: It’s actually more challenging now than ever because we are supplying 11 teams tyres, each team wishes to make the best use of their tyres. All of them have different technologies and we have to co-operate with them and learn how to let them use their tyres most efficiently, so we are learning even more than before. Also back in Japan we have an organisation in place for making competition tyres (competing with rival brands) because our competitors may choose to come back in future, we have to have development power and are always ready to compete.

CB: How is the development for slick tyres in F1 going?
Hamashima: Slick tyres are not such a headache for us, because we have been working on them in other formulae, like CART and GP, Formula Nippon. However the blanket ban is challenging, some driver’s have complained about warm-up issues in the Barcelona test, so we will have some more tests in July to concentrate on this issue.

CB: One last question. Who do you think will win the Championship this year?
Hamashima: Hmm…I think it’ll be between Raikkonen, Hamilton and Massa. Most likely Raikkonen, because he’s very consistent and when the car isn’t performing so well he is able to cover that disadvantage. Massa is very quick but doesn’t have as much car control. Hamilton seems a little confused this year! But if he recovers enough points he can still win.