From Japan to Russia with love
July was a busy month for Bridgestone Motorsport. It started with a round of the MotoGP World Championship in Catalunya, where Bridgestone was delighted to be joined by numerous tyre dealers who had the opportunity to watch the Bridgestone equipped riders dice it out wheel-to-wheel on track, soak up the atmosphere of the fascinating MotoGP paddock and enjoy specially arranged pit box visits. For Bridgestone, race weekends like these are the perfect opportunity to maintain and develop its relations with the people who really are at the front line of its business of selling tyres.
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But that was only the start of the month and two days later Bridgestone Motorsport was accompanying Patrick Head and Nico Hulkenberg from the AT&T Williams team to the Bridgestone Eco-Rally. This was swiftly followed by a jam packed weekend of customer and dealer guest activity at the British Formula One Grand Prix and the weekend after that, at the hugely popular Sachsenring round of MotoGP, where two lucky customers were treated to a knee trembling ride on the Ducati 2-seater.
Seeing the grins on their faces afterwards it was soon clear they had fully appreciated the quality and level of technology that Bridgestone has put into its race tyres, complete with the knowledge that this know-how is passed onto Bridgestone’s road motor cycle tyres too.
By now, we were only half way through the month and races at the German F1 Grand Prix at Hockenheim, the MotoGP at Laguna Seca and Hungarian F1 Grand Prix outside Budapest over the next two weekends ensured it was an action packed month.
But, in amongst all that activity, Bridgestone was also lucky enough to invite the talented Renault F1 Team rookie, Vitaly Petrov, to its main media and dealer event of the year in Moscow. As Russia’s first ever F1 driver, the 25-year-old is receiving increased interest from the public but before heading off on his weekend of media and promotional activities centred around the Moscow City Racing event, Petrov took time out of his schedule to spend the day with Bridgestone Russia and their invited guests.
Much of the day was spent with Bridgestone briefing these guests about the company’s latest line up of winter tyres, specially suited to the harsh and sub-zero temperatures of the Russian climate. Although the irony of learning all about the handling qualities and braking distances of the new Bridgestone Ice Cruiser studded tyre and Bridgestone Blizzak tyre in the middle of a Russian heat-wave was not lost, the guests listened keenly to the presentations knowing that the severe Russian winters are not to be taken lightly.
The highlight of the day for the guests though was undoubtedly their chance to meet, listen to and question Petrov, who was swift to praise the Bridgestone Potenza tyres used in Formula One. As he described what it is like to compete against the world’s best drivers, he also took time to emphasise the importance of looking after and checking tyres on a regular basis. As an F1 driver, he knows that the difference between a badly inflated tyre and a corrected inflated tyre could be seen not only in his lap times, but could also make the difference between braking safely and getting into serious trouble. No wonder then that he quite happily admitted that his family uses Bridgestone tyres.
But tyres aren’t the only things from Japan Petrov enjoys it seems as Bridgestone’s guests learned when he bravely took to the centre stage alongside a Master Sushi chef. Learning how to handle, make and slice sushi takes considerable time and patience but for a man who is normally more suited to taming his Renault F1 Team car, he was remarkably proud of his culinary achievements. Sharing his plate of sushi with Bridgestone Russia’s Managing Director, Yoshiaki Hiraishi, Petrov seemed quite content to enjoy not only the safety of his Japanese made Formula One tyres, but also the delights of Japanese cuisine.