MotoGP news

Bridgestone focus on qualifying tyre

Preparations for the 2008 MotoGP World Championship have continued apace for the majority of Bridgestone Motorsport's line-up of teams and riders at the demanding Phillip Island circuit this week. A three-day test session drew to a close at the Australian circuit today (Friday) with reigning world champion and last year's Australian GP winner Casey Stoner once again staking his claim to the top of the timesheets with an exceptional time of 1m28.777s. The circuit best lap at Phillip Island stands at 1m29.002s, set by Nicky Hayden in 2006. 

"The test programme for this week's Phillip Island test has been similar to what we carried out in Sepang with a focus on evaluation of our latest specification race and qualifying tyres," said Shinji Aoki, assistant manager at Bridgestone. "We have worked over the winter on developing race tyres with new shape and construction which will form the basis of our work for the course of this season. The results from Sepang were quite encouraging but it has been important this week to validate this performance level at Phillip Island, a more technically demanding and high-speed circuit which places greater stress on tyres." 

"As in Sepang, I believe we can be satisfied with the results from these three days in Australia," he added. "Our riders have completed a lot of laps and we have received a lot of data which will be important for the next development stage. Some riders have carried out long-run tests to assess the durability of these tyres, which have given us a reasonable indication of what fine-tuning is still required. Casey's times today were very impressive, not only in terms of his lap time on a qualifying tyre, but also on race tyres he has been exceptionally fast and consistent." 

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