What lessons did Bridgestone learn from last year’s debut race at the revised, shorter Assen?
“The biggest issue that we faced in last season’s Assen race was tyre degradation and inconsistency over the race distance, even if Shinya and Kawasaki did a very good job to finish in second place. The right-hand side of the tyre is punished quite a lot and it is this area which is our real focus. We have not experienced too many degradation issues this season and overall our race tyres have been regularly competitive with all of our five teams, but we must treat each circuit on its own and not take anything for granted.” Does Bridgestone have anything new for Assen? “We will be bringing medium and hard compound rears to Assen in an effort to counter the degradation levels we saw last year. We were able to evaluate our new 16’’ rear tyres in Donington and some teams indicated their intention to race with them had it been dry on Sunday afternoon. The track characteristics could suit better the 16’’ rear tyres because it gives some teams more stability and traction with their machines,
