After a damp morning session in which Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro’s Michael Schumacher topped the practice time sheets, this afternoon’s rain hit qualifying session proved to be a difficult one for the Bridgestone runners. Michael Schumacher was the highest qualifier for Bridgestone, setting the sixth fastest time while his Brazilian teammate, Felipe Massa, was thirteenth fastest.

Massa, however, will be penalised for an engine change and will start from the rear of the grid.

Next up for Bridgestone was the WilliamsF1 pair, who were 15th and 16th fastest. Changeable weather conditions are expected for tomorrow’s 56-lap Chinese Grand Prix in which title front runners Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher will be battling for the championship lead.

“Clearly it was a tough afternoon for the Bridgestone runners in the wet conditions,” said Hisao Suganuma. “We have recently tried to improve our wet tyre performance, bringing a different tyre to that used in Hungary and although it was an improvement, it was evidently not enough. We need to improve our grip levels when there is water falling on track but things did improve as the track dried out. On the other hand, in the morning practice session, the teams were able to switch to our dry tyre quite early on, indicating that the tyre does have good performance in damp conditions. The forecast for tomorrow is for changeable weather so it is possible that our dry tyre’s wider performance window could be beneficial for the Bridgestone teams.”

Bridgestone