The Bridgestone Tire Company's Formula 1 Challenge

The Bridgestone Tire Company provides tires to all of the Formula 1 teams. In addition to the challenge of preparing the tires for the cars, the company has one of the biggest logistics challenges in the sport.

The tires begin their life in Southeast Asia, where natural rubber is produced, and where Bridgestone owns rubber plantations. The tires are made of both natural and synthetic rubber.

Bridgestone designs and tests its racing tires using computer software and on track testing. The results of test are used to further refine the tire construction.

Bridgestone uses approximately 10 major different materials in its of F1 tires, including sulfur, carbon black, oils, synthetic rubber, steel and other materials.

"For the 2007 F1 season," a Bridgestone company statement says, "Bridgestone will produce wet and extreme wet weather tires as well as four new dry tire specifications – hard, medium, soft and super soft compounds."

The company produces around 60,000 Formula 1 tires each year in Bridgestone’s factory in Kodaira, near Tokyo. Before it leaves the factory it is checked for faults and quality, and each tire is identified with a Bridgestone number and an FIA barcode. This is used to allocate the tires to teams and drivers.

The Bridgestone European base for race activities is in England, at Langley, which is near the Heathrow Airport. "The tires usually travel by sea, but if time is tight they are sent by air," said Bridgestone. "If this is the case, the tires are shrink-wrapped at Narita Airport for protection."

The Langley base is also a storage place for thousands of the tires throughout the season and the winter testing period. But it serves too as a working base for the engineers, technicians and other staff.

Bridgestone takes the tires to each of the European events in 12, 32-ton tire transporters. Tires going to a race are loaded on the Friday of the week before a Grand Prix, and it takes one to two days to reach any European circuit from Langley.

The Bridgestone tire transporters act as storage areas for the tires once at the track. But they are also turned into work areas for the tire fitters and other technicians who fit, strip and balance the tires using purpose-built machines.

Work for the fitters starts on Wednesday afternoon before a race. It is not done in just any old order, either. Priority goes to the teams in the order of their results in the championship of the previous season. So the winning teams are always served first! Crews from each team deliver the rims to the fitting area and they also pick them up once stripped of the tires. Bridgestone itself keeps the tires after the race.

From the Friday to the Sunday, through practice, qualifying and the race, Bridgestone engineers and technicians closely monitor all of the tires. They note the tire temperatures and pressures, and also work throughout the weekend in the the fitting area on any last minute work. That area becomes especially busy if the weather moves from dry to wet, and more rain tires are required to be fitted.

Bridgestone remains on top of the job all the time, even after the race ends. The teams do not keep the tires. They only keep the rims. The Bridgestone technicians strip the tires from the rims and send them back to Langley, and sometimes back to Japan for analysis or to be recycled.

Spurgeon, B., (Not dated). The Bridgestone Tire Company's Formula 1 Challenge. About [online] About.com. Available from: SOURCE [Accessed 11 July 2009].