Bridgestone rejects delay of tire warmer ban

Bridgestone has rejected the delay of the ban of tire warmers in Formula 1. The Formula 1 teams wanted the delay of the tire warmer ban until 2010 as they have concerns about the safety of the drivers who will have to get use sudden change of being cold slicks at the beginning of a session whether it be practice, qualifying or the race itself.

Bridgestone quickly rejected the team concerns finding them to be nonsense. Bridgestone's director of motorsport tire development Hirohide Hamashim believes that the concerns are absolute bull and that the teams actually have something else in mind on why they don't want tire blankets to be banned.

"Bridgestone has said to the FIA that we have confidence in (producing) a good specification of tyres, in terms of grip and handling, without tyre warmers. The real concern is minimum pressure," said Hamashima. "They worry about minimum pressure. We suggest a minimum pressure to teams because we would like to keep tyres safe, but some teams will take a risk - and cheat. Other teams are worried about that, so they would like to keep the tyre warmers."

Bridgestone will have a test next month in Barcelona to decide what kind of tires they will use in 2009, but the tire change won't stop the concerns of the drivers over safety. Williams' driver Nico Rosberg says that the Grand Prix Drivers' Association may have to get involved in the matter.

"It's not racing, it's survival," Rosberg said about the difficulties drivers experienced on their first lap out of the pits on cold tyres. "It's just survival out there, and that's ridiculous, it's not racing. They have to do something on the tyres to improve that. It's not the way it should be. You can have cold tyres, but not like that."

Bridgestone rejects tyre warmer ban delay (Autosport.com)