Bridgestone believes that McLaren was right to pit Lewis Hamilton for a second time during last weekend’s Australian Grand Prix.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Autosport Hirohide Hamashima, Director of motorsport tyre development for the Japanese company, stated that the Woking-based team had alternative but to pit the British driver as he had completely worn out his first set of dry tyres.
“Concerning Webber and Hamilton their first dry tyres were almost worn out,” he said. “They had to do a two-stop.”
In other news, former F1 driver David Coulthard, has announced that he will compete in this season’s DTM – linking up with Mercedes, who powered him to twelve victories at McLaren between 1996 and 2004.
“I didn’t actively look to race anything through 2009 but at the season finale DTM race I really got the buzz and the tingle again for the competition,” the Scot told BBC Sport.
“That led to a test with Mercedes, which led to me making the decision that I’d like to dovetail my BBC work with racing in the DTM.
“There’s a reasonable level of technology involved in the cars, it’s a professionally run championship and in Mercedes there’s a company I worked with for seven years in my time at McLaren.”
It is not thought that Coulthard’s position as a pundit for BBC TV will change, as the DTM calendar does not clash with this season’s Formula One World Championship.
Meanwhile the enigma that is the USF1 story appears to have taken another twist after it was reported that the Charlotte-based operation has laid off its entire staff.
According to the Charlotte Business Journal, team boss Ken Anderson broke the news to staff via an email, claiming that “serious economic and funding challenges” meant that their services were no longer required.
Prior to this staff has been put on “unpaid leave” for the beleaguered squad, which failed to find enough funds to take part in the 2010 season.
However, the newspaper also states that Anderson has not given up on his F1 dream and wrote in the email that he hoped for staff to be rehired if investment is found.
More news will appear here as it breaks…
