Hirohide Hamashima - Bridgestone Director of Motorsport Tire Development

How was the race from Bridgestone's perspective?

"Today was a very exciting race, particularly from a tire perspective. We saw a good range of strategies, and when to use the medium compound was a difficult decision for teams, as it delivered a consistently slower lap time than the super soft. The super soft performed well and heat degradation was not a big problem even in the extreme heat of Bahrain. There was some very good tire management from drivers and also some strong running from competitors on the medium tire too. I think today has shown just how exciting racing can be with two Bridgestone tires with different characteristics with our 2009 allocations."

As the second dry race of 2009, does this help with the understanding of the 2009 tires?

"We have accumulated a lot of good data from the first four race weekends and this has been very useful. The other fully dry race in Australia was unusual as the track surface did not evolve in the same way as we had seen in previous seasons, so the tire performance did not improve as we predicted there. Here in Bahrain was interesting because of the extreme heat, but our tires performed well, and continued to give competitors a challenge for how best to use them during the course of the race."