Bridgestone Motorsport reports that motorsport’s finest up-and-coming drivers sampled its Potenza Formula One tyres in the final group test of 2009 at the Jerez racing circuit in southern Spain on 1-3 December. All four compounds of 2009 specification dry tyres were available and used at the test. Twenty drivers drove 2,602 laps over the course of the three days for the nine attending teams. Bridgestone’s intermediate and wet tyres were also used. The test was designed to gather data on the old tyres in preparation for their 2010 development, with teams all running different programmes and heavier cars to simulate extra fuel loads. Jun Matsuzaki, chief engineer at Bridgestone Motorsport stated: “It was good to see so many young drivers here at the same test, and there were more experienced F1 test drivers in action too, so we had a good benchmark. We could see some of these names again in the future and our current F1 drivers will always need to keep looking over their shoulders because of these youngsters.”