Based in Japan, Bridgestone Corporation is the world’s largest tyre and rubber company.
In early September, Bridgestone released its latest European market Ecopia passenger car tyre. The introduction of this environment-oriented product has now been followed up with the European launch of an Ecopia truck tyre range. At the IAA Commercial Vehicle show in Hannover, Germany, Bridgestone Europe CEO Mac Ohashi formally announced the line-up’s debut in our region.
Bridgestone Motorsport will take its medium and super soft Potenza tyres to the fifteenth round of the Formula One season, the spectacular night race that is the Singapore Grand Prix on 24-26 September. The race takes place around the streets of the Marina Bay area of the city of Singapore and has provided exciting races in each of its previous two attempts. With the Drivers Championship delicately balanced between five potential champions and the less predictable track conditions offered by public roads, tyre strategy could once again provide a crucial tipping point in the direction of the podium places.
With 14 years of tyre supply soon to end, Bridgestone Europe celebrated its Formula One partnership at its final race within the region. On September 10, during the Italian Grand Prix weekend, more than 170 guests from Formula 1 racing teams, the press and Bridgestone companies attended the Paddock Club event, the centre piece of which was a question and answer session with leading F1 personalities including Bridgestone past and present champions Michael Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button. Racing team principals Martin Whitmarsh of Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, Ross Brawn of Mercedes GP Petronas and Stefano Domenicali of Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro joined the drivers on stage while a host of fellow team principals and senior team management also added their weight to the occasion.
A desire to provide customers with a more efficient and professional service is the given reason behind Bridgestone Europe’s decision to restructure its organisation. A series of changes have been planned and Bridgestone is already working at introducing these; the company aims to have the restructured organisation fully operational by January 1, 2011. Significant changes to be implemented include the division of responsibility for sales functions into six geographical regions, each with its own regional headquarters that will operate under the overall control of Bridgestone’s European headquarters in Brussels. A reorganisation will also be undertaken at the Brussels headquarters; Bridgestone says this should result in better operational support being given to the regional sales companies in specialised areas.
A number of senior management changes are scheduled to take effect at Bridgestone Europe on October 1. Yuji Takeuchi, chairman and former senior vice president of Sales & Marketing, and Yasuhiko Tanokashira will both return to positions in Japan. Mitsuhira (Mike) Shimazaki will join the Bridgestone Europe management group as senior vice president Business Operations. This latest posting will be Shimazaki’s third assignment to Europe.
The technical battle between Fernando Alonso – who kept open his Drivers Championship hopes – and Jenson Button provided the entertainment at Monza as the Spaniard’s set-up prevailed. Monza is renowned for its high speeds, but despite some blistering, tyre manufacturer Bridgestone waved goodbye to European Formula One with typically resilient performance. Alonso used a soft-hard tyre strategy to beat Button who took the lead from the pole-positioned Ferrari at the start of the race. Alonso retook the lead in the pit stops to lead the reigning champion across the finish line by 2.9 seconds. Ferrari’s other driver Felipe Massa finished third, 1.2 seconds behind Button.
For the fourth year in a row, Pirelli was confirmed world leader in the Autoparts and Tires sector in the Dow Jones Sustainability Europe and Dow Jones Sustainability World indexes. For the second year in a row, Pirelli was also the only Italian company to be ranked as a world leader in its sector.
Bridgestone Corporation has announced a number of senior personnel changes, scheduled to take effect October 1. Yoshiyuki Morimoto has been appointed vice president and officer of Tire Research and Material Development plus assistant to the vice president and officer, Office of Group CEO Technology Relations. Akihiro Eto will become vice president and officer, chief financial officer of Finance and chief information officer of IT & Network; Eto will concurrently serve as director Corporate Planning Division, Internal Control Division, Advanced Business Development Division; he will also take on the role of general manager Paper Business Planning and Sales Department. Yutaka Yamaguchi is to become vice president and officer Tire Products Development. At the end of October Akihiro Eto will shed some of his responsibility, and will serve as vice president and officer, chief financial officer of Finance and chief information officer of IT & Network plus director Corporate Planning Division and Internal Control Division.
Bridgestone Corporation is one of five companies deleted from the FTSE4Good indices during a semi-annual review held in September. The FTSE, which is jointly owned by the Financial Times and the London Stock Exchange, removed Bridgestone for “not meeting the FTSE4Good Human & Labour Rights Criteria.” Specific information regarding Bridgestone’s alleged transgressions has not been provided.
Continued growth in global demand for radial passenger car and light commercial vehicle tyres has convinced Bridgestone of the need to further expand capacity at its Nong Khae factory in Thailand. Capacity at the plant, which has supplied the domestic and key overseas markets including Asia, North America and Europe since entering production in 1995, has already benefitted from one capacity expansion project. In January 2008, work began on increasing daily capacity by approximately 6,000 units. This project is scheduled to be completed by 2011; now the tyre maker’s Thai Bridgestone Co., Ltd. subsidiary will invest approximately 21.3 billion yen (£164.9 million) to boost daily production capacity by 13,500 units to 50,000 units by the end of 2014.
Bridgestone is to supply its Potenza tyres to Formula One for the final time in Europe this weekend, when the 2010 season enters its final four races with a trip to Monza. The Italian Grand Prix offers the challenge of one of the highest top speeds, with long straights bringing low downforce configurations into play, thus putting greater mechanical stress on the tyres. The tyre supplier is bringing its hard and soft compounds to the track for what its Motorsport director Hiroshi Yasukawa says will be “a very emotional… race for us”.
The ContiSportContact 3 has won this year’s Auto Express test, the second time in a row a Continental brand tyre has won what is arguably Britain’s most popular annual tyre ranking. That said Michelin’s Pilot Sport 3 was just 0.6 per cent off the pace in the overall results with a benchmark of 99.4, closely followed by Goodyear and Dunlop with 99.2 and 99.1 in third and fourth place respectively for the company’s Eagle F1 Asymmetric and SP Sport Maxx TT tyres. Fifth place was taken by Hankook’s Ventus S1 evo with 98.2, a hair’s breadth ahead of Pirelli’s P Zero.
Bridgestone’s Ecopia EP150 eco-friendly tyre, unveiled at the International Motor Show in Frankfurt, Germany just under a year ago, has finally been launched in the European market. The tyre will be introduced as an integrated replacement and original equipment product, targeting compact and mid-sized passenger cars with 14 to 16-inch rim sizes in 55 to 65 series. At present seven 14 and 15-inch sizes have been released, with a further one 15-inch and two 16-inch fitments scheduled to be launched in January 2011.
Sales of heavy-duty commercial vehicles in China surged to 316,725 units in the second quarter of 2010, an 83 per cent jump year-over-year according to a report published by ACT Research Co. and China's State Information Center. According to leading Chinese truck and bus radial (TBR) tyre manufacturer Giti Tire, demand for TBR tyres in the People’s Republic equates to 30 million units/year – more than three times the 9 million tyres consumed in Europe annually.
When Bridgestone packs up its gear following the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in November, a 14-year chapter in the company’s history will come to a close. Accompanying Bridgestone during its entire Formula One journey has been Bridgestone Motorsport’s director of motorsport tyre development, Hirohide Hamashima. From the very first F1 tyres developed in secret during the late 1980s right through to today, Hamashima has been a central figure in Bridgestone Motorsport’s team. Yet the role he has played in the high profile motorsport championship is one that earlier would have been hard to imagine.
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