Bridgestone's head of track engineering operations, Kees van de Grint has said that they definitely made the right choice in terms of taking the soft and super soft tyres to the Hungarian Grand Prix last weekend.
Speaking following Sunday's race, which was an historic one for the Japanese tyre manufacturer, as the result took their tally of
Formula 1 podium finishes pass the 300 marker to 302 - not that they had any competition - van de Grint added that while he was slightly concerned on the Friday and Saturday with the super soft compound, the race proved in the end that he had no reason to worry.
Indeed
Kimi Raikkonen, who finished second behind race winner
Lewis Hamilton, set the fastest lap in the race on the super soft - a 1 minute 20.047 seconds, which was also another milestone for
Bridgestone, taking their total number of fastest laps in the sport to 110.
“So many things have happened over this weekend that one could almost forget that we're witnessing a fantastic championship and a fantastic battle for victory today [Sunday]. I believe Bridgestone plays an important but not deciding part of the very close racing,” he reflected.
“The soft compound Bridgestone Potenza was a very high performing tyre over the entire weekend whilst the super soft provided a challenge for the drivers and engineers.
“The track and weather conditions came to the super soft and it performed excellently, setting the race's fastest lap on the final lap of the race.
“We saw a variety of tyre strategies today, the most interesting conducted by [Heikki] Kovalainen who started on the super soft and completed two stints on this compound on his way to a well-deserved point. It is fair to say that after Friday and Saturday's running I was a little concerned by the performance of the super soft, but the fact it performed so well in the race is a compliment to our engineers in Tokyo who made the correct estimation. All in all I am very satisfied that we brought the correct tyres which worked well,” he added.
