Bridgestone, as always, will be supplying the tires for the MotoGP riders this weekend at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The Indy circuit was recently repaved, but Bridgestone is confident that its tires will perform extremely well at the Brickyard.
"This week we're back in America again, now in the east in Indianapolis as opposed to last time we were there five weeks ago at Laguna Seca on the west coast," said Hiroshi Yamada, manager of Bridgestone's Motorsport Department. "It's clear that Indianapolis is working hard for the benefit of MotoGP with all their recent resurfacing work and we are happy to be going again to such an historic circuit."
The Indy circuit is very demanding the MotoGP tires, especially on the left shoulder. The 4.2 mile circuit has 10 left handed turns. Bridgestone has selected an extra hard compound rear slick tire for the Indy GP, which will have a softer compound on the right side of the tire.
"Reports are that IMS have done a great job resurfacing the circuit which will make for more consistent conditions this year," said Hirohide Hamashima, the assistant director of Motorsport tire Development. "The speed may be a little higher because the tarmac and the grip will be more consistent, whereas in the past there were clear changes in the circuit character from the opening section designed for MotoGP to the Formula One infield to the famous oval. The tarmac is much smoother now which will also help as bumps interrupt the tires' contact patch and we saw a few falls last year because of this.
"Indianapolis is a relatively hard circuit for the left shoulders of our rear tyres in particular because of the speed and long nature of left-handed corners such as turn one and turn five. Being leaned over for a relatively long time at speed creates some of the highest rear tyre temperatures of the year, and for this reason Indianapolis is the only Grand Prix all year for which we have selected the extra hard compound rubber in the left side of the rear slick tyres."
