One group of men washes and polishes the trucks while the other group sets up the race trailer awning and tyre-fitting equipment. Thursday is 'first fit' day, virtually continuous tyre fitting on two lines with men at each of the various stages of the process, including fitting, inflating and balancing. The team fits approximately 750 tyres that day.

Bridgestone fits its tyres in numerical order which means Michael Schumacher, in car number 1, gets his first; it is the fairest method. As their tyres are fitted, the wheelmen from the teams (usually one man per car) collect them on Thursday afternoon. Meanwhile, the Bridgestone technicians continue fitting into the evening. The team has a policy of always being at the circuit two hours prior to the first track session - the reason for this is that should any team which to have more tyres fitted or re-fitted, it takes up to 90 minutes for the tyres to reach the correct temperature in the heated blankets. In addition, if it is wet or rain is forecast then there more wet-weather tyres may be required. During the Friday practice sessions, some members of the team remain at the fitting area for security reasons and to do any re-balancing.

Other fitters head for the team garages where they work with Bridgestone's engineers during the sessions. It is their job to collect tyre temperatures and pressures whenever the cars return from a timed lap. The information is passed on to Bridgestone's and the teams' engineers. The tasks are the same during qualifying and after each pit-stop in the race. By qualifying on Saturday, the teams have committed themselves to one of the two dry tyre compounds, and this is the specification they must race with.

All the wheels fitted with the other dry tyre are returned to Bridgestone for stripping. In addition, on Saturday afternoon there may be more re-balancing and checking required of tyres that were scrubbed in qualifying to be used in the race the following day. Sunday morning sees more tyres being used as teams often use the warm-up to run their spare car. After warm-up, Bridgestone starts preparations for the full-scale strip of all tyres following the race, and begins packing away the equipment no longer required that weekend. For stripping, the fitting area is literally turned around so the reverse process can take place. As they are stripped, the tyres are divided into unused wets, drys and scrap and loaded onto the trucks. Every single tyre is accounted for. If it's been a dry race, about 200 sets - 800 tyres - will be stripped, with the men working into the evening on Sunday. Later the trucks are moved out of the paddock ready for the next morning when the convoy hits the road for the return journey to the UK, where the process starts all over again.