F1 manufacturer with 175 wins 'pushing' to return to the sport

F1 could be set for a huge shakeup ahead of the 2029 season, with the return of a legendary manufacturer.

The tyre company Bridgestone are plotting an F1 comeback having left the sport after the 2010 season following 14 consecutive seasons.

F1 offer exclusivity on tyres in the sport which is currently held by Pirelli, who have been providing the tyres to all the F1 team's cars since the 2011 season.

Back in July, F1 activated a one-year extension to their contract with the Italian brand which will take them to the end of the 2028 season.

The contract for F1 is then offered through a tender process, where F1's governing body the FIA selects a winner before finalising the deal with the sport.

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Bridgestone have 'strong' bid to challenge Pirelli

According to RacingNews365, Bridgestone is preparing to return to F1 with a technological, business and commercial package that succeeds its previously strong bid in 2023, where they beaten by Pirelli to the contract - and report they have a 'strong chance' of winning.

Hiroshi Imai, who left McLaren after 15 years in 2024, returned Bridgestone where he worked between 1990 and 2008 in 2025 and is leading the mission to get back into F1, and is a member of the Bridgestone delegates that reportedly were at recent races including the US Grand Prix.

Bridgestone came back to the sport in 1997 with its Potenza tyre alongside previous sole supplier Goodyear and despite having the slower slick tyre in its first year, rapidly improved to force Goodyear out by the end of 1998.

The next two years saw Bridgestone act as sole supplier before Michelin entered F1 in 2001 and started the era's famous tyre war.

This erupted at the 2005 US Grand Prix, when the Michelin tyres were found to not be safe to tackle the track's diamond cut tarmac on a steep bank, resulting in just the six Bridgestone runners, including Ferrari and race winner Michael Schumacher to compete.

Michelin then left the sport at the end of 2006 and F1 has intentionally kept just one tyre supplier in the sport ever since, with Bridgestone's 2010 exit leaving them with 175 wins from 244 races after their 1976 debut.

Pirelli's excellent F1 record

Pirelli's exclusive deal is a record for F1, indicating that F1 have been extremely happy with their 16 seasons in the sport.

While their work on producing different compounds with various degrees of degradation to keep the pit-stop strategies interesting, there has been criticism of the Pirelli's full wet tyre.

It is though to be far inferior to even the intermediate tyre, which is best suited to a slightly wet or even drying track and as a result has rarely been seen on an F1 track under green flag racing.

This has led to wet races being more likely to be run under safety car conditions or even red flagged, although this is in conjunction with F1 cars providing even more spray, making visibility for drivers even harder to contend with.

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