Bridgestone Americas introduced that Firestone Racing will combine its ENLITEN™ Expertise to the model’s Firehawk race tires for the 2026 within the IndyCar Collection and Indy NXT, starting with this weekend’s Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
The tire is the following chapter of the model’s potential to “reveal the ability of the sustainability-focused suite of applied sciences,” in keeping with the press launch.
This season will see Firestone Race Tire Engineering (RTE) design, develop, and ship an estimated 37,000 Firehawk ENLITEN Expertise race tires. Greater than 32,000 race tires for the IndyCar Collection make up that complete, with 60 totally different specs to fulfill the various calls for of oval, highway, and road course configurations on the 18-race schedule. The tire allotment additionally consists of 5,000 tires throughout 18 totally different specs to help the following era of drivers competing in Indy NXT.
The brand new ENLITEN Expertise is designed to ship personalized efficiency whereas selling a give attention to enhanced sustainability throughout the Bridgestone and Firestone tire portfolios, which incorporates shopper merchandise. Firestone Firehawk major and alternate race tires will incorporate key ENLITEN Expertise Components1 , together with:
• Renewable soybean oil: Replaces petroleum-based oils historically utilized in tire compounds
• Recycled metal: Used for the bead wire that anchors a race tire to a wheel
• Recycled carbon black: Reinforcement materials recovered from end-of-life tires
Use of those supplies helps enhance useful resource effectivity and elevated materials circularity whereas assembly the rigorous efficiency calls for of North America’s premier open-wheel racing Collection.
“Firestone Racing serves as a cell lab to check and show new applied sciences below probably the most excessive situations,” stated Lisa Boggs, Director, Bridgestone Americas Motorsports. “The mixing of ENLITEN Expertise is the following step in our dedication to no compromises, and sustainably targeted expertise by using cutting-edge supplies.”
The earlier three seasons noticed Firestone’s sustainability efforts efficiently show using guayule-derived pure rubber within the sidewalls of alternate race tires on road circuits. Firestone Firehawk Indy 500 race tires additionally integrated supplies derived from hard-to-recycle plastics (2023) and palm oil waste residue (2024-25).
The 2026 Firehawk Indy 500 race tire will as soon as once more function two ISCC PLUS- licensed monomers – butadiene and bio-styrene, produced from waste residue of palm oil processing – together with recycled metal bead wire2 .
Efforts are additionally ongoing to advance end-of-life recycling initiatives for race tires, shifting from power era to materials circularity. Practically 100% of the tires utilized in IndyCar and Indy NXT are recycled into new makes use of past the racetrack – together with playground and sports activities surfaces, flooring and different rubber merchandise.
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