At the start of the programme,
Bridgestone Japan made half the production run of American racing tyres but, as the
F1 programme got underway, Japan focused more and more on building F1 tyres.
"Even as we had to supply the IRL as well, Bridgestone Japan started making fewer and fewer tyres and we made more and more here in the United States," Mader said. "That process will be complete next year when all the tyres will be made here. From Japan's point of view, they've seen their involvement in
Formula One grow even more than they expected, much as ours here having to supply two series."
Mader says two keys to Bridgestone Firestone's success have been the quality of the tyres and an open, honest relationship with the teams.
"The most important things were the consistency of the tyres and us doing the right thing with the teams and working closely with them so that they trust what we tell them," Mader said. "They know that we don't blow smoke, almost never! We always tried to do the right thing and treat everybody the same. I don't know that's always done in all the other types of racing series, but that's the way we've always tried to operate."
Added Speyer: "We're very proactive in our relationships with the teams. We don't necessarily wait for them to come to us. We go to them. I know we have prevented a lot of problems before they happened because we actively went to them, particularly on air pressures and camber adjustments they were wanting to make.
"I think we were able to convince them that just going fast doesn't work if you don't make it to the end of the race. You've got to make it to the end. If you have a tyre problem - and it's easy for a team or driver to say it's the tyre company's fault - but, if you have a problem, you still haven't won the race. If you're going to try to run too low an inflation pressure or too much camber and abuse the tyre, it's really not in your best interest in the end."
Mader says Bridgestone Firestone has made a lot of progress in analysing its tyres after they've been used.
"We have learned some better analytical methods in the last half of this endeavour, even more to assure that the product, even though it looks fine, may not be fine, and we need to know that ahead of time," he observed.
