Unfortunately for him, Jani was driving this final stint on the soft Bridgestone "reds", and he was soon struggling for grip.
Parent company Bridgestone was founded in 1931 by Shojiro Ishibashi and first produced golf balls in 1935.
While other manufactures had utilised the advantages of rotary disc valve induction on small single-cylinder machines, only Kawasaki and Bridgestone produced twin-cylinder machines.
He stayed in the team for the 2005 season, which saw him become competitive by the end of the year, aided by improving Bridgestone tyres.
The following year, Arrows surprised the world by signing World Champion Damon Hill and introducing Bridgestone tyres to Formula One.
Bridgestone | Bridgestone Arena | Bridgestone Racing Academy | 2002 Bridgestone Potenza 500 |
This change seemed to have favored the Bridgestone's wider performance range over the more temperature- and track-specific Michelins.
Prior to his racing career, Fontana enjoyed a very successful period in the junior Karting ranks, the highlights of his career coming in 2007 when he won the Swiss KF3 championship and the following year when he became champion in the Bridgestone Cup Switzerland KF2 class.
A few executives from the Solel Boneh company decided to open a competing company and later that year, with know-how from the "Dayton Tire and Rubber Company" (since bought by Bridgestone), Alliance was founded.
In November 2005, the International Labor Rights Fund, representing "tappers" (workers who extract latex from rubber trees) on the Liberian plantation, filed an Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) case in US District Court in California against Bridgestone (parent company owning Firestone), alleging “forced labor, the modern equivalent of slavery”, on the Firestone Plantation in Harbel, Liberia.
After early employment with Bridgestone Australia, he went on to work for the Treasury Department of the Government of South Australia as the Management Accountant.
Tyre Size: Front - 90/90 - 17M / C49P (Tubeless) ; Rear - 130/90 15M / C66P (Tubeless), available from Metzeler (Lasertec), Pirelli (City Demon), Bridgestone (Exedra), IRC (from Thailand) and Shinko (with white-walled option)
Notable people from Kurume include the family of the Bridgestone Tire Corporation (Shojiro Ishibashi), George Shima (the "Potato King" of California), the singer and actress Seiko Matsuda, anime creator Leiji Matsumoto, the television celebrity, Rena Tanaka, actor Ryo Ishibashi, and actor Susumu Fujita.
Valdés has received various awards, including the Lissone and Biella in Milan in 1965; the silver medal in the second International Prints Biennial in Tokyo; an award from the Bridgestone Art Museum in Lisbon; the Alfons Roig Award in Valencia; the National Award for the Fine Arts in Spain; a medal from the biennial International Festival of the Plastic Arts in Baghdad; and in 1993 the Medal of the Order of Andrés Bello in Venezuela.
It is a manufacturing site for Bridgestone Aircraft Tire and General Tobacco.
Grant Petersen, who, while in charge of American marketing and bicycle design at Bridgestone, developed the XO-series, founded Rivendell in 1994.
Although the pair were fighting for the title from different pit boxes (as Valentino Rossi chose to use Bridgestone tyres and as Jorge Lorenzo continued with Michelin), Yamaha operated as one brand and not two separate manufacturers.