MAY 12, 2005

Red Bull Racing and Bridgestone

Red Bull Racing is tipped to be on the verge of doing a deal to run Bridgestone tyres in 2006. This would make sense for a number of reasons. For a start, Red Bull is just one of many teams using Michelin rubber and that means that when the tyres are good, the team will be fifth or sixth in the running order. However a switch to Bridgestone would mean that Red Bull would slot in to become the second Bridgestone team, behind Ferrari but ahead of Jordan and Minardi. If Bridgestone produces the best tyres, Red Bull will be scoring big results.

There is also a question of money as Red Bull probably has to pay for the current tyre supply but if it switches to Bridgestone may be in a position to enjoy a little largesse in the form of Yen from Tokyo as Bridgestone has probably realised by now that it cannot do enough testing with only Ferrari and needs more teams to help out.

It helps, of course, that Red Bull will be a Ferrari customer next year.

In addition to all that, having more teams on board will make Bridgestone a better challenger if the decision is ever taken to switch to control tyres in the future.