Both Ducati and Yamaha are wary that the problems that Valentino Rossi, Ben Spies (check out the images of both riders tires here – you’ll have to scroll down to see the Yamaha rider’s tires) and Hector Barbera (if you look carefully you can see the small indentation) had at Assen could repeat itself during this weekend’s Sachsenring GP.
Bridgestone is bringing the same rear compound tires used at Assen to Germany, that is, medium soft and medium asymmetric rears and it was the medium compound (chosed by Yamaha and Ducati riders due to the higher temperatures race day) that suffered the anomaly.
Bridgestone’s Shinichi Yamashita, General Manager Tyre Development Department, apologized Sunday evening and said the”affected tyres got back to our Technical Centre in Kodaira, Japan as soon as possible where they are now undergoing comprehensive analysis in our laboratory.
We are making every effort to determine what occurred,” however Bridgestone has yet to release the results of their probe (obviously the interval has been too short), so the teams are worried not only for Sachsenring but especially for the Mugello GP, which has the has one of the longest and fastest straights on the calendar, and many are starting to remember Shinya Nakano’s rear tire blowout but that was very long ago and way before anyone wanted a single tire manufacturer, but Ben Spies still remembers his 2003 crash at Daytona due to a tire failure.