F1 - Bridgestone finally announce tire markings for 2007

A new rule in F1 this year, now that everyone is using the same supplier (Bridgestone), is that every car must use both tires specs duing each race.

F1 Tires come in about four compounds of varying hardness - harder giving more durability but less grip and vice versa. At each Grand Prix weekend two of these comounds will be available - as in the past few years.. But not you must use at least one set of each in the race.

So that spectators can tell which tires are being used on any given car the softer tires will have a white dot on them which looks like a band when in motion.

Will be interesting to see how people race - I imagine we'll see people start on the hard compound for a very short stint and then do a long middle (or final) stint on the softer ones.



RW

FYI, this has been done as part of the overall 'slowing of F1 cars' initiatives undertaken in the history of F1.

As with reducing the engine capacity two years ago (and another three years before that again) plus banning of dozens of other ideas - all done to make sure F1 cars are slower (for safety) and so that year-to-year teams have to wring out the nth of every possible aero/tire/suspension/engine development path... and which is why pretty much every significant consumer car development has come via F1 (and not IRL, Nascar, CART, V8s etc) - hence the high regard of F1 compared to every other series.

RW