» More tyre compounds announced

Formula 1’s sole tyre supplier, Bridgestone, has revealed which of its compounds will be used for the upcoming races, up to an including the Turkish GP. Two tyre compounds – a softer and harder compound – must be used by each driver at least once over the course of a race.

The exception to the rule is in the event that the race is declared wet, in which case just one compound may be used.

Following the running of the Bahrain GP, Bridgestone came under intense scrutiny in the wake of a rather mundane season-opening race, and it was felt by many that the tyres that had supplied for that weekend did not suffer the degradation expected. Our exclusive interview with Mario Andretti (the full interview will be published shortly) was just one of many to voice the same suspicions, with the 1978 Champion the Bridgestone tyres as “too good”.

"Deciding which tyres to bring to a Grand Prix is always a difficult decision, especially as we don’t receive advance notification of the exact weather we will see at the race circuit over the three days of running," explained Bridgestone’s Head of Motorsport Tyre Development, Hirohide Hamashima.

"Tyre performance in Bahrain was good, however we remain vigilant and safety is the overriding concern for us. Shanghai and Barcelona are both quite severe circuits and Istanbul, as we have seen in the past, is particularly severe. For Monaco this year we will have a gap in the allocation too, which is a change from the two softest compounds which we have taken previously."

Will the tyre selection provide us with more exciting action in the coming Grand Prix rounds? Here’s hoping so!

The tyre compounds for the first seven rounds of the championship are confirmed as follows: