Firestone will take its newly-constructed right-front tire for Phoenix Raceway and also carry it to the IndyCar round at World Wide Technology Raceway later this season.
With numerous tests to support the continuation of Firestone’s superspeedway tire development, the rubber compound has been different from anything previously raced to date in North America’s premier open-wheel championship. The tire is wider than the manufacturer’s current right front tire, with unique characteristics to the construction that, due to the width, adds cornering (lateral) grip.
During the Unser IndyCar Open Test at Phoenix Raceway, Cara Krstolic, Executive Director of race tire engineering and production for Firestone, confirmed to Motorsport.com the plan to carry the same right-front rubber from the 1-mile tri-oval to the egg-shaped 1.25-mile oval - formerly known as Gateway - located just outside of St. Louis, Missouri, for the race on June 7.
“Definitely we'll see it carry over into Gateway,” Krstolic said. “They have similar types of demands out of the circuit. At both here [Phoenix] and Gateway have more of a load that goes into the right front tire, which means some of the speeds and loads are the same or a little bit more similar here. So very likely we’ll see this tire go forward into Gateway.”
The first race with the unique right-front tire will take place during the doubleheader weekend shared with NASCAR at Phoenix March 6-8.
Krstolic also mentioned there are also plans to have a similar variation of the right-front tire, albeit with a denser rubber compound, for the Nashville Superspeedway round on July 19. Prior to that, though, there is a test planned for early April.
“The other area we're going to see something similar to it, but obviously with a harder compound is Nashville,” Krstolic said. “So we'll take this design philosophy and do a Nashville test that we're going to be doing on April 7th, so we'll build upon our learnings coming up to this point and put those in for Nashville.
“Milwaukee will likely remain a true short oval tire. It is more of a flat race track than most ovals. So we’ll likely use the same tire specifications as 2025.”
