June 13, 2019 |
Goodyear to Return to European and International Sportscar Racing
Goodyear has announced that it will re-enter European and International sportscar racing by developing a new range of tyres 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 according to the tyre manufacturer, it provides a strong platform for demonstrating tyre technologies on a wide range of different prototypes and GT cars.
“The nature of the races (varying from 4 to 24 hours) mean tyre choice and strategy are critical and it provides a motivating challenge for our technology team in our European innovation centres ahead of exploring other racing opportunities for the brand,” Goodyear Motorsport Director, Ben Crawley said.
Goodyear has been developing a new range of tyres for Le Mans prototypes for over a year at its innovation centres in Hanau (Germany) and Colmar-Berg (Luxembourg).
The tyres will reportedly be developed and manufactured alongside Goodyear’s latest range of Eagle F1 SuperSport tyres for performance and track-day cars, ensuring that the technology and knowledge transfer between the road and race ranges is optimised to benefit the performance of both.
The tyres will debut at the start of the 2019/2020 WEC season at Silverstone in August.
“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 tyres were also used to win 368 Formula One Grand Prix races.
