Brawn GP driver Jenson Button used a two stop, hard hard soft tyre strategy to win a fast paced Turkish Grand Prix in hot and sunny conditions at the Istanbul Park circuit.
Button finished 6.7 seconds ahead of Red Bull Racing driver Mark Webber, who used the same strategy. The final podium position went to Webbers team-mate Sebastian Vettel, who was the only driver to use a three stop strategy, using the soft tyre for only his final stint.
Bridgestones hard tyre proved to be the superior race tyre here, with good consistency. Button set the races fastest lap, a 1min 27.579secs, using the hard tyre on lap 40. There was some front tyre graining seen on the soft tyre, however this did not cause any particular issues. Most drivers used a two stop strategy, however Lewis Hamilton (Vodafone McLaren Mercedes) and Sebastien Bourdais (Scuderia Toro Rosso) completed the race distance on a one stop strategy.
Hirohide Hamashima – Bridgestone Director of Motorsport Tyre Development, says
Today was an interesting race in very hot conditions. Congratulations to the Brawn team and Jenson Button who were a very good combination today. I am happy to say we did not have any tyre problems at this very severe circuit, even in the notorious Turn Eight. We continued to see graining on the soft tyre, but this was much less than yesterday so lap times remained reasonably quick. Tyre strategy considerations were quite straight forward as the lap time difference between the two compounds at this circuit was not so big, but the hard was more durable. We did see one stop strategies today, illustrating that even the soft tyre was capable of doing a long stint.