Bridgestone welcomes new F1 teams

Bridgestone Motorsport is pleased to confirm that it has finalised contracts for the provision of Bridgestone Potenza Formula One tyres with the Renault F1 Team, Team McLaren Mercedes, Honda Racing F1 Team, BMW Sauber F1 Team, Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso.

The six new teams are expected to run on Bridgestone F1 tyres for the first time at the Barcelona winter test in Spain, provisionally scheduled for 28-30 November, 2006.

After six years of competitive tyre supply, the FIA Formula One World Championship is about to enter a new era with Bridgestone as the sole supplier of F1 tyres from 2007 to 2010. The new teams will therefore be joining Bridgestone’s current stable of five teams: Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro, Panasonic Toyota Racing, WilliamsF1 Team, Spyker MF1 Team and Super Aguri F1 Team.

Hiroshi Yasukawa, Director of Bridgestone Motorsport said: “We are extremely pleased that we have now reached agreements with the six remaining teams for the supply of Bridgestone Potenza tyres in the FIA Formula One World Championship. We are very much looking forward to testing and racing with them all and developing good technical, personal and commercial relationships.

“This year has been an extremely positive year for Formula One and we look forward to working with the teams and the FIA [Federation Internationale de l’Automobile] to ensure F1 has an exciting future. Our role will be to provide safe, high performance tyres of the highest quality and to ensure fairness of service to all the teams. We are therefore also particularly pleased that all eleven Formula One teams have recently cooperated with each other to agree a balanced programme of testing for 2007 in the interests of fairness and cost efficiency.”