Right up to the final lap of the final round…

This was a race that kept raising hopes then dashing them right up till the final seconds. Hamashima watched it from the pit garage: "I couldn't tear my eyes from the screen."
The 2008 season was a close-fought battle between McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari's Felipe Massa that would not be settled until the last moments of the final round in Brazil.

Before the Brazilian GP, Hamilton was leading the rankings with 94 points, closely followed by Massa on 87. Only seven points between them meant that even if Massa won this final race Hamilton could still take the championship by finishing in the top five. Massa's position was more complicated - if he won, he would only take the title if Hamilton finished sixth or lower. If he came in second, he'd still become champion if Hamilton finished eighth.

In the Saturday qualifying Massa took pole, and Hamilton qualified in fourth position. As they prepared for a race that could give either of them the title, the weather became unstable.

Heavy rain delayed the start of the race by ten minutes. Shortly after the start, Red Bull's David Coulthard crashed, and the safety car was deployed. Despite the confusion this caused, Massa stayed in front and increased his lead over the pack. Hamilton however dropped back to sixth place after his first pit stop, although after his second stop he made it back to fourth.

The race looked set to continue like this when, with only ten laps left, rain returned to Interlagos. Most teams decided to change their tyres to the standard wet-weather type. Toyota, however, continued to run on dry tyres - a decision that would have a significant impact on the outcome of the race. At this point the top six were Massa in the lead followed by Alonso, then Raikkonen, Glock, Hamilton and Vettel. If this formation continued until the flag, Hamilton could be sure of the title. However, with just two laps to go, Vettel overtook Hamilton, knocking him into sixth place.

Massa passed the finish line in first place and appeared to have secured the championship. Back in the pit, the Ferrari team were cheering and slapping backs. Hamashima was there with them.

"Everyone was celebrating, but for some reason I didn't join in. I was still watching the monitors, thinking Hamilton's race isn't over yet…"

And indeed, barely seconds after Massa passed the chequered flag, the McLaren Team suddenly realised it was they who should be celebrating. In the last moments of the race the rain intensified again and first Vettel, then Hamilton, passed Glock, who was now struggling for grip with his dry-weather tyres. By finishing fifth, Hamilton had secured the championship with the narrowest of margins.

With Bridgestone as sole tyre supplier, Raikkonen took the 2007 title for Ferrari by just one point, and now in 2008 the same thing had happened - victory by a single point for Hamilton and McLaren. Hamashima discusses the significance of these results:

"Suddenly F1 had become far more interesting and exciting right to the end of each season. I think we can confidently say that it was largely due to Bridgestone's efforts to supply the best tyres impartially to everyone."

Coloured grooves focus attention on tyres' role

Since 1998, F1 had been run on grooved tyres. This rule had been unchanged throughout our years as sole supplier and in the periods when we faced competition, but now the FIA had decided to reintroduce slick tyres from 2009. Their aim was to increase the possibility of overtaking - adding excitement for the crowds - even though they still wanted to restrict the cars' speed.
A big issue for the FIA at this time was the rapidly rising cost of car development. Everyone was looking to keep these costs down, and in fact Bridgestone had been in the lead on this point. Yasukawa explains:

"After Michelin retired in 2007 and we became sole supplier, we got the FIA to limit the amount of testing allowed. Teams were now only allowed to run 30,000 km of tests a year. And we reduced the number of test tyres we supplied to teams like Ferrari and Toyota from 16,000 a year to less than one tenth of that - just 300 sets, totalling 1,200 tyres. Each year, we planned to reduce the number of tyres we supplied. Naturally, the teams and even the Bridgestone development section objected to this, but the corporate standpoint was that we had to reduce the cost of our F1 involvement."

These spiralling costs had been causing a damaging split in competitiveness between the top teams with their almost unlimited development budgets and the smaller teams who couldn't keep pace with this spending. And now that the world was facing an economic crisis, even the rich teams were feeling the pinch. They wanted to continue research and development for the sake of winning, but budgets were getting tighter. The same dilemma confronted everyone, and so, after rounds of heated discussions with the teams, the FIA decided to change the regulations regarding car construction.

In order to reduce speeds, which had become too fast again, starting from 2009 cutting-edge equipment would be prohibited and there would be restrictions on aerodynamic design. To compensate for the reduced grip resulting from these limitations, slick tyres would be re-introduced. Reduced mechanical grip means lower cornering speeds, but the increased grip from slick tyres provides greater stability during braking and re-acceleration, meaning drivers would try to overtake more often.

The FIA decision meant that 2008 would be the last year for grooved tyres. Hamashima: "It didn't involve any fundamental change in tyre construction. Just some changes in the positioning of the rubber." But then he added: "We did have to think again about the tyre's appearance."
He was talking about the need for marks to indicate to spectators which of the two specified tyre compounds cars were using after the 2007 regulation stipulated that both hard and soft tyres must be used in each race. In the opening round, a white dot was painted on the sidewalls to identify soft tyre compounds, but from the second race this was replaced by a white line for better visibility.

Use of white lines continued in 2008, and another indication was added for the Japanese GP this year. Soft tyres had one white painted groove and three green ones, while hard tyres had four green grooves. This was part of the Bridgestone-FIA "Make Cars Green" environmental campaign.

"We didn't only want to indicate the tyre's performance with these markings, we also wanted to draw more attention to the importance of the role of the tyres themselves. Tyres often go unnoticed, but they are a vital component of any car, whether you are a race driver striving to win or a regular road user wanting your vehicle to be kinder to the environment. That was the point of our campaign."

A win for Vettel and Toro Rosso

As we noted earlier, there were seven different winners during the 2008 season. Lewis Hamilton (McLaren), Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari), and Fernando Alonso (Renault) were podium veterans. The other three were winning for the first time in their F1 careers. These were Robert Kubica (BMW Sauber), Heikki Kovalainen (McLaren) and Sebastian Vettel (Toro Rosso). And the most impressive of these victories was by Vettel, winning on his team's home turf in Italy.

Monza was one of the fastest courses of the season, but this year the weather would have a significant role to play. The qualifying session was held in rain, and veterans Hamilton, Raikkonen and Kubica were eliminated in Q2. Vettel's cautious approach to driving in rain paid off, landing him pole position.

Race day also started with heavy rain. The race started behind the safety car, with all teams using the deeply-grooved extreme wet-weather tyres. Everyone expected a dramatic and troubled race, but in fact only Giancarlo Fisichella of Force India dropped out and Vettel went from pole position to win. It was a fine first victory for the young driver, and for Toro Rosso.

Tetsuro Kobayashi was the tyre engineer behind Vettel's win.
"Vettel was already well known as a fast driver. Even so, not many people thought that Vettel and Toro Rosso could successfully take on the top teams. And they were probably right for dry conditions. As you know, it's only under wet conditions that we clearly see the true level of a driver's skills, and this Italian GP was just such an occasion. Vettel showed that he could maintain stability at high speeds in the worst wet weather, giving us a superb display of skilful racing. I'm also proud to say that his Bridgestone tyres performed excellently, supporting him stably throughout the race."

Hamashima joined Kobayashi in complimenting Vettel's performance:

"It was truly a well-earned victory: really impressive driving. In those days he didn't come round to discuss the tyres with us so much, but when he made a comment it was always to the point. And I can't praise him enough for the way he handled our tyres."

Two years later, Vettel would become the youngest Champion in Formula One history. That was 2010, Bridgestone's last year in F1 racing.