As a club racer, who cares. They barely support our programs.
Goodyear—a company whose tires have been equipped on 14 Le Mans-winning cars—announced that they are going all in on developing tires for the start of the 2019-2020 FIA World Endurance Championship, a series that includes the famed 24 Hours of Le Mans. They'll be developing the new tires right alongside their current Eagle F1 SuperSport tires, which can only mean good things for all involved.
Read the press release below, and let us know what you think in the comments.
Goodyear has announced that it will re-enter European and International sportscar racing by developing a new range of tires for the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC), including the Le Mans 24-hour race.
The FIA World Endurance Championship features long-distance races on four continents with the Le Mans season finale, a race which Goodyear-equipped cars have won on 14 occasions.
Goodyear has chosen sportscar racing for the first step of its World Championship racing comeback as it provides a strong platform for demonstrating tire technologies on a wide range of different prototype and GT cars, as Motorsport Director, Ben Crawley, explains:“The nature of the races (varying from 4 hours to 24 hours) mean tire choice and strategy are critical and it provides a motivating challenge for our technology team in our European innovation centers ahead of exploring other racing opportunities for the brand.”
Goodyear has been developing a new range of tires for Le Mans Prototypes for over a year at their innovation centers in Hanau (Germany) and Colmar-Berg (Luxembourg). The tires will be developed and manufactured alongside Goodyear’s latest range of Eagle F1 SuperSport tires for performance and track-day cars, ensuring that the technology and knowledge transfer between the road and race ranges is optimized to benefit the performance of both. The tires will debut at the start of the 2019/2020 WEC season at Silverstone in August.
This comeback marks the return of the famous brand to global sportscar racing at one of racing’s most iconic venues. With over 250,000 attendees, Le Mans is one of the largest single attendance sporting events in the world. “Motorsport continues to be one of the most popular global sports,” Crawley continued. “It is an ideal platform for us to engage with consumers around the heritage, passion, innovation and technology that make up Goodyear’s story in racing.”
“We will focus on sportscar racing at first, before applying learnings to other categories of racing, which could be within the endurance arena or in other racing series.” added Crawley.
Goodyear has a proud history in motorsport. In addition to the 14 wins in the Le Mans 24 hours, Goodyear tires were used to win 368 Formula One Grand Prix - a record that stands unbeaten. Goodyear also have considerable sportscar racing experience after decades of success in American IMSA racing.
As a club racer, who cares. They barely support our programs.
Nothing really new,they own Dunlop which had been already in the WEC so they are just rebadging the tires Goodyear.
As a small time road and stock car racer, I'd have a hard time buying a Goodyear race tire over a Hoosier or an American Racer, but I doubt they will ever come back to the short tracks.
Translation: "Crap... NASCAR viewership is down... we need to diversify..."
Wow, so much negativity for an American company returning to a sport many of us watch and follow. Sounds like good news to me. Oh yes, I forgot, if it costs more than $0.001 no one is interested and being the internet everyone must outdo themselves with smart ass derogatory comments.
Goodyear will never again be my tire provider, their dealers and factory refused to honor a valid warranty on 2 brand new Marathon (Crapathon) trailer tires. Use caution if you buy their tires !
In reply to Adrian_Thompson :
They are still a business and the post above yours kind of illustrates the point.
Personally I'm more interested in them at a grassroots level. Autocross tires, club racing, stage rally, that sort of thing. It's great that they're headed where they're headed, but I'm not a purchaser in those markets.
In the hose world Goodyear went away and Continental or Conitech is the new name. The Goodyear name is strong in tires but no more in hose and rubber.
Just more useless trivia from Datsun310Guy.
In reply to Adrian_Thompson :
Yes, negativity. They threw short track racers to the wolves. American racer stepped up, hired most of the race tire people who Goodyear had canned, and provides better service than Goodyear did.
I have very little interest in Goodyear and their success.
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