Competition really started the previous year

In fact, our competition with Goodyear had already begun the year before, in 1996. That was when the Bridgestone engineers were given the go ahead by Yasukawa to try to get the regulations changed that governed the number of tyre sets allowed during race weekends.

"Until then, it had been just Goodyear providing all the tyres for F1, and with a single supplier seven sets were used for each race. But our engineers thought this was a waste and really wanted to use eight sets. It was quite a struggle to negotiate the regulation change with the FIA in time for the start of the 1997 season."

Thanks to their efforts, the new regulation was approved. From 1997, cars would use eight sets of tyres per race.

Would we be ready in time?

Australia, and the 1997 F1 season is about to begin. "Have we really got everything we will need?" Hamashima was in Melbourne preparing for the race, and feeling uneasy. His equipment was all freshly purchased, and from the UK rather than Japan. The tyre fitters were all English, and the engineers were a mix of Japanese and English. The tyres, of course, were supplied from Japan.

Hamashima's second cause for concern was the course. Since deciding to enter Formula One, Bridgestone had conducted many tests on permanent circuits throughout Europe. But this Australian Grand Prix would be held on city streets, and we had zero experience of a course like this. Hamashima felt a growing dread that his team was about to be severely embarrassed in front of the world.

What kind of tyre should we bring? "We had been supplying tyres for Australian touring cars, so we used that as a point of reference." Jun Sakiyama was a compound engineer who had transferred in 1996 from All-Japan Formula 3000 tyre development to work on our F1 tyres.

"Normally, after we've completed all our preparations, we start to get excited in anticipation of the race. But this time was different. Everyone was on edge, worried that something would go wrong."

The first day practise session passed without incident, and Hamashima breathed a sigh of relief. In response to what he saw at the session, he decided to propose a race strategy that would let the drivers get the most out of the Bridgestone tyres. But would the teams accept his suggestion? This was yet another worry for him as the race day got closer.

Tyre-based strategy

The photo says it all. Alain Prost's face shows just how tough a decision this must have been for him.

Hamashima had just put his proposed race strategy to the former World Champion driver and now team owner.

"Our tyres are much more abrasion resistant. So why don't we cut out one of the pit stops?"

In our first F1 qualifying session, the fastest Bridgestone-shod car was Prost's Olivier Panis in ninth position with a time 3.473 seconds slower than pole position winning Jacques Villeneuve (Williams). This was much better than we had hoped, and made Hamashima's argument more persuasive.

But for Prost, this race was his team's F1 debut as well as ours. Cutting out a pit stop would make the car heavier and braking more difficult, and it was easy to see that Prost really wasn't keen on taking a chance on this plan.

In the end, however, Hamashima persuaded him to try it. The fifth place result was stunning for a race debut, and that moment formed a lasting bond between us and Prost.

A serious blow for our rivals

After a spectacular start scoring points in the opening race, we did even better in the second Grand Prix. In Brazil, Panis ranked fifth in the qualifying session and in the race he passed the chequered flag in third place. In only our second race in Formula One, we already had a driver on the podium. Yasukawa and Hamashima were astounded. Hamashima remembers thinking "Panis on the podium? It can't be true. Rather than feeling happy, I almost felt we had succeeded too quickly."

The early races of each season are always especially hard-fought, and this year's first race was a real battle for survival between just ten cars. Taking into consideration where we were starting from, Bridgestone and Prost had done superbly - scoring points in our very first race and placing third in our second.

The reaction from our rival tyre supplier was all too obvious. Hamashima remembers it well:
"I could see they were very worried. After all, we were supplying only lower ranked teams, and getting results so much better than expected. I was sure the top teams had all been asking hard questions. That's why they started using soft tyres to get position in the qualifying sessions. But then they got all these blowouts during the race, while our cars just kept on going."

Seeing this only increased our confidence that we had followed the right course.

Tyres that maintained their grip from beginning to end - this was our philosophy for racing tyres, and firmly holding to it was what would carry us successfully through our first year of Formula One racing.

A first victory within sight

August 10th, 1997. At the Hungaroring Circuit near the Hungarian capital of Budapest, two men anxiously watch the progress of the race on the pit wall.

Bridgestone's Hamashima and Takaaki Kimura, Yamaha Project Leader, could almost taste their dream becoming reality. The Formula One car equipped with their engine and tyres was now racing around Hungaroring Circuit as lap leader. Only minutes remained before the chequered flag. And then in the last two laps, it all fell apart. Already in cruising mode and with victory right in his sights, Damon Hill's pace suddenly started to fall off. A hydraulics problem meant he could now only use second and third gears, and his speed continued to slacken. Seconds later he was overtaken by second runner Jacques Villeneuve (Williams). With barely 3/4 of a lap left to the flag, the race was lost.
The men from Bridgestone and Yamaha saw their dream of a F1 victory fade before their eyes.

"Kimura was bitterly disappointed because it was the only time Yamaha had been in the lead like this. For us, it also helped focus and drive our efforts even more, but for the Yamaha people this race was a real blow."

Both teams were disappointed, but the big difference was that Bridgestone had only just begun F1 racing. For Yamaha, the 1997 season was to be their last.

In the early part of the season, Bridgestone's tyres had been delivering performance good enough to have our rival really worried. But all that was changed by the crash of our ace driver Olivier Panis during the 7th round in Canada. After that, all our initial momentum seemed to ebb away.
The pressure was heavy in rounds 9 (Silverstone), 10 (Hockenheimring) and 13 (Monza), all high speed circuits where engine performance is the deciding factor.

"We found we didn't stand a chance on courses where power decides who wins. It was a bit of a shock to learn that there were races where tyres alone would make no difference."

That's why the Hungarian GP was so important for us. Hungaroring is a slow course, like Monaco, where engine power alone doesn't guarantee victory. There was another factor too - this year, the Hungarian Grand Prix was held at the height of the summer, meaning it would also be a battle against the heat. We had prepared soft tyres to combat the high temperatures, and went into this race with a lot of confidence.

Arrows' owner Tom Walkinshaw shared our confidence in these tyres, and Damon Hill was ready to drive them to the limit. The Hungarian Grand Prix was to be Bridgestone's chance to prove that tyres could make all the difference between winning and losing, on a course that demanded more than just raw engine power.

Hamashima calls the 1997 Hungarian Grand Prix "a real blessing for our tyre designers."

This race was also watched keenly by a tyre engineer who would become our rival after Michelin entered F1 racing in 2001. Pascal Vasselon later told us about the excitement he felt:
"At the start of the season, the Arrows team was definitely one of the lower ranked. Watching the Arrows car overtake Schumacher in this race really set my heart pounding. Nobody could deny this proof, especially those of us at Michelin. We now knew for certain that a race could be decided by the tyres."

At the time, aerodynamics were the prime factor determining a car's performance. But after Bridgestone entered the race and competition began among tyre suppliers, tyre development became as important a factor in Formula One as body aerodynamics.

We need a top team

"Why aren't you offering us your tyres?"
It was Norbert Haug of Mercedes asking Yasukawa. Bridgestone had previously worked in partnership with Mercedes in the German Touring Car Masters (DTM), and Haug approached Yasukawa because he was already well aware of our tyres' performance.

Yasukawa could only reply: "I know we've worked together in the past, but we don't have a contract with Mercedes because we are committed to McLaren."

As the 1997 season proceeded, we had found ourselves in a position where we could no longer continue to wait for McLaren to approach us.

Naotaka Horio, who was responsible for management together with Yasukawa, remembers this moment. "Before they made any announcement, Bernie Ecclestone had contacted Yasukawa to tell him that Goodyear were thinking about retiring. That got everyone's blood up - we couldn't let them quit before we had beaten them." Yasukawa had to change the way he was negotiating with the teams.

"If it was true about Goodyear retiring, we were determined not to let them get away with an unbroken record. That meant we had to sign with a team that had a good chance of winning. I explained this to head office, and suggested we try to get a contract with McLaren."

Of course, McLaren already had a contract with Goodyear. Yasukawa told McLaren that he would wait until they had settled matters with Goodyear before negotiating his own contract with them.

Goodyear eventually made it official, telling the teams that they would retire from F1 racing after 1998. Goodyear's delays in making this announcement meant that McLaren had been uncertain about the status of their contract, but now they were free to act, and soon Bridgestone was official tyre supplier to one of the sport's most famous top teams.

F1 from a non-engineer's viewpoint

Unlike the engineers' specialised view of the race, Naotaka Horio saw the whole picture. In addition to his logistics role in finding office space in England, hiring local staff, and arranging for transporters and a thousand kinds of equipment, his duties negotiating contracts with teams and the FIA, and handling the media, had brought him into close contact with countless figures in the Formula One scene.

This is how he remembers meeting ex-World Champion Jackie Stewart as he arranged our first year partnership:
"This man is the consummate professional. To tell the truth, I wasn't hugely impressed at first - I thought he was a bit glib. But I soon changed my mind. There is extreme skill in the way he talks, and he can persuade anyone to his point of view. When we worked together, he always made sure he met our requests to the last letter. A real pro."

In our second F1 year, working with McLaren showed us just how good team leadership could be. The influence of that renowned perfectionist Ron Dennis could be felt in every last thing they did.

"I realised how McLaren always paid great attention to their sponsors. To me this was the sign of the professional. And don't you think the McLaren pit was always superbly clean and good looking? There was something special about that. Their factory was just the same. They thought of Formula One as also being part of show business, and paid constant attention to their image."

Jackie Stewart and Ron Dennis - Horio was working face to face with these giants of the Formula One world, legendary drivers who had now become team owners themselves.

Of all the races in our first year of F1, the Hungarian GP was the most eventful. Horio recounts his biggest memory of that race:
"After the race, the three drivers on the podium wear these special caps, and in those days it was the tyre manager who would hand his driver the cap. Now in Hungary, the motorhomes are a long way from the podium. If I waited till the end of the race, I wouldn't reach the podium in time. So before they entered the final lap, with Hill's victory looking certain, I set off running toward the podium carrying the cap marked "1st." But when I got there, the Goodyear people started saying "no, no." That's when I realised we had only finished second. It was quite a blow."

Horio's experiences of Formula One reflect a viewpoint quite different from that of the race engineers. But just like theirs, his memories and achievements are now part of Bridgestone's DNA, a valuable legacy that will continue to influence our future motorsport activities.