This week's Grapevine brings you information fresh from the paddock on: Bridgestone gaining ground Looking forward: 2002 in perspective

Bridgestone gaining ground

Following the interesting showing at Hockenhiem, where Michelin demonstrated a jump in performance that surprised most of the Bridgestone runners, the Japanese company has been working hard to improve their rubber, and renew their fight for dominance.

At the German Grand Prix, Michelin introduced a few changes to their tyres. In addition to improving the compound and structure of the tyre – which responds excellently to hot conditions – they made the tyre wider, and augmented the structure to help enforce the tyre's form. The net result was a tyre with a larger and more consistent contact patch on the ground. The improvements offered to braking for corners, not to mention grip and stability going through them, comfortably offset the cost that the wider tyres carried in terms of increased drag at high speeds.

The response from Bridgestone has been very interesting. The company has revisited its development strategy, which they now believe did not properly consider the benefits available from changes in the size of the tyres. Off season feedback from the teams running Bridgestone rubber – particularly the front runners – was to avoid the dimension change route where possible. They considered the work required to accommodate the changes (revise the front suspension geometry, then solve for the best air-flow around the front wing and barge-boards) is considerable: enough so that slight gains to grip would be offset by a relatively large aerodynamic penalty. Strangely enough, since Hockenheim, there is no further complaint, as Michelin is clearly the better rubber at high speed circuits when this restriction is in place.

Bridgestone have continued to work on their compounds too. They believe – and, as importantly, the teams they work with concur – that their compounds no longer show a performance deficit in hot weather; rather, if anything, their performance is pretty steady across the temperature gradient, whilst Michelin's tyres tend to go off somewhat in cold conditions. As much to the point, Bridgestone believe their tyres get up to operating temperature in around a lap of any circuit, and are clearly wearing less over racing distances than Michelin equivalents.

That said, Michelin continue to move forward. The tyres they introduced at the German Grand Prix demonstrated a very solid step forward, and to date, Bridgestone only believe they have closed that gap. Any further progress the French manufacturer has made still has to be recovered.

Of course, there's always the wet. There, Bridgestone showed their hand early with their exceptional intermediates: these, and the full wets, have been further improved. Given a wet race, none expect there to be any question about who has the advantage. At least, not this year.

Forward looking: 2002 in perspective

Over the last decade, there has been something of a sea-change in the way teams prepare for the coming season. At the start of the nineties, there were still teams taking their "last year's" chassis to the opening fly-away races, before introducing their new challenger for the European season.

Over the last decade, the "modern era" has taken solid hold. The new, ultra-professional approach to the sport means that each new season presents a chance to steal a march on the competition – or to head into the European races at a 30 point deficit. And with a decade of the team winning the opening races going on to take the Championship demonstrating the importance of the season opener advantages, not even the smallest team can afford to carry a car across the season divide.

So now teams start working on the car for next year around mid-June. Concepts are finalised, and requirements battled out between chassis requirements (mass vs suspension geometry), engine requirements (power and fuel load vs mass and consumption), and the aerodynamics (managing flow around inconvenient lumps, like wheels, drivers and engines) are well under way. During July, the first concept car is penned, and work is already under way on first models. They go through the wind tunnel, and get discarded, whilst the data is used to design the next set.

From here on, any parts which show promise are lined up for testing on the car, if there's time at the next test, proving the wind-tunnel results work on the track. Where concepts can be applied directly to the current chassis, they are integrated; similarly, work evolving the new chassis often throws up new directions for next year's car. And it's this cross-pollination of ideas which helps the front teams keep their edge – but also leaves all the teams requiring as much testing as possible.

This year, there is to be no testing through November or December. Accordingly, the teams are looking at strategies to ensure they can get enough testing in ahead of the new year…

Williams are looking at building a hybrid chassis to take testing, but do not rule out the possibility of racing it before the end of this year. It should be used to prove the suspension and aerodynamic concepts for next season, and provide empirical data for Michelin's ongoing development. There is still debate over putting together a complete monocoque (which would, essentially, make it the complete "first cut" for next season).

McLaren have been investing heavily: the new Paragon centre is coming along nicely, and they will have two wind-tunnels available for use through the off season. There is a full program of exercise and break times lined up for the drivers, to ensure they are fully recuperated for the new season. Outside these details, the team are keeping a good lid on their plans...

Ferrari, similarly, are keeping the lid tight on their off-season plans, though they are already talking to Bridgestone about targets for the opening races. The development plans for next year's engine are aggressive, as they look to close the gap to Williams: management are optimistic that a 50bhp power improvement and 5% fuel efficiency gain can be achieved between now and next March.

The mid-field is far less organised. Jordan have aspirations of greatness, but are struggling to gain ground on the front runners. BAR believe they have a strong end coming to this season, but seem to have lost focus on 2002, whilst Sauber are working against budget constraints. Of the rest, Minardi are the most organised, and give or take the engine supplier, know what they want to do with the new car, and how to go about getting there. Arrows have stopped worrying about this year, and are flat out developing for 2002, whilst Prost is struggling to stay afloat. Benetton, of course, gave up on 2001 a long time ago: the teams efforts now are going towards ensuring Renault's returning debut year is not a nightmare. They claim to be the dark horses for 2002, but without the engine making the steps forward that were promised for this year's unit, and more besides, they could be set to run at the wrong end of the grid for another year.