“Our development will continue”After a more difficult time of things in Germany the previous weekend, Bridgestone bounced back in style at the Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix as they filled the podium and had seven riders in the top ten.
Bridgestone-equipped Casey Stoner
took another superb victory in the Laguna Seca sunshine, his sixth win of the season representing the seventh Bridgestone triumph in eleven MotoGP races this year.
Stoner totally dominated the weekend, heading the timesheets in every session, notching a new pole position record on qualifying tyres, setting a new circuit best lap on race tyres in the Sunday morning warm-up session and recording the fastest lap of the race - which he won by just under ten seconds on Bridgestone slicks.
Rizla Suzuki's Chris Vermeulen took his third podium of the season with a well deserved second place, while Honda Gresini's Marco Melandri earned an heroic third place after his accident in qualifying – both of course using Bridgestone compounds.
The Laguna dominance marked the third race this year that riders on the Japanese firm's tyres have taken all three podium places, repeating the successes of Turkey and France. The U.S. Grand Prix results also mean that, since their MotoGP debut back in 2002, Bridgestone have now had riders on the podium at every circuit on the current World Championship calendar - the sole exception of Misano which Bridgestone have yet to visit as it returns to the schedule this September.
With four more of their riders claiming top ten places at the Californian venue it was good news all round for Hiroshi Yamada, Bridgestone Motorsport's Motorcycle Sport Department Manager, who commented: “I am very happy with the performance of our tyres this weekend and with the final result. It has been important for us to react quickly to the difficult race weekend we experienced in Sachsenring and we have worked very hard all weekend to bounce back.
Our development will continue through the next few weeks as we prepare for the final part of this exciting season for Bridgestone.”
DORNA / CAPSIS International
