Supply side motorsports: Single tire supplier becoming norm in major racing series

AKRON — The interaction between the tire industry and the world's motorsport community has undergone a seismic shift in the past few years that will result in nearly all of the major racing series committing to a single tire supplier situation.

The alignment that has emerged at the start of 2020 leaves precious few racing series with open competition. Most prominent among the venues in North America with open competition are drifting and off-road racing.

In the drifting arena, five tire brands — Atturo, Giti, Falken, Nexen and Nitto — are gearing up for a spirited year of head-to-head action in the 2020 Formula Drift season in the U.S., while in off-road, as many as six brands — BFGoodrich, Falken, General Tire, Maxxis, Mickey Thompson and Toyo — are set for another year of short-course fender-to-fender competition in the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series.

• This article appears in the Jan. 20 print edition of Tire Business.

The last couple of major international series with open competition — the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) and World Rally Championship (WRC) — are moving to single-supplier relationships in 2021, moves that involve and affect Goodyear, Group Michelin and Pirelli Tyre S.p.A.

Easily the biggest swing is Goodyear's return to the international road-racing scene after a nearly two-decade hiatus, with the Akron-based tire company securing the tire supply contracts with three predominantly European endurance and touring car series.

Goodyear disclosed its motorsports decision last June, stating at that time that sports-car racing provides a "strong platform" for demonstrating tire technologies on a wide range of different prototype and GT cars as well as being an "ideal platform" for the company to promote the launch of its Eagle F1 SuperSport RS ultra-ultra-high-performance (UUHP) tire line.

Considering the racing heritage Goodyear has built over the past century, it is only natural that the company should seek to use that brand equity to promote its re-emergence as a supplier of UHP and UUHP tires to the top echelon of car makers, Motorsport Director Ben Crawley told Tire Business recently.

"This natural (brand) equity … will allow us to leverage our exposure with the launch of the F1 Eagle SuperSport," Mr. Crawley said, "especially considering that certain materials and technology overlap."

Goodyear hasn't been absent from sports-car racing altogether the past decade or so, he said, noting that the company's efforts internationally were focused more on the Dunlop brand.

Considering the success of that program, Mr. Crawley said it is only natural now to convert those relationships to the Goodyear brand, especially since Goodyear doesn't have global rights to the Dunlop brand.

"The logic in (switching) is that … we can expect a better return on our investment with the Goodyear brand," he said.

"Overall, when you want to have a successful lineup at that end of the market, where there are few key parameters for success, getting certain OE fitments are critical, whether they're image-building or performance-demonstrating vehicles. … "

Mr. Crawley pointed to Porsche A.G.'s homologation of the Eagle F1 SuperSport RS for use on its 911 GT2 RS and 911 GT3 RS lightweight street/track cars as an example of this strategy.

In addition, he noted earlier, the nature of the WEC races — varying from 4 hours to 24 hours — means tire choice and strategy are critical and provide a motivating challenge for the company's technology team in Europe.

As Goodyear's strategy unfolds, consumers should expect to see Goodyear-brand promotional efforts ramp up as well, Mr. Crawley said, whether it is at the track, on various social media platforms, in advertising and/or use of the Goodyear Blimp.

"We want to maximize our motorsport involvement and leverage it as a marketing asset," he said, in the Europe/Middle East/Africa and Asia/Pacific regions where these racing series enjoy widespread exposure.

That said, there are two races on the 2019-20 WEC calendar in the U.S. — Feb. 23 (six-hour race) at Circuit of the Americas near Austin, Texas, and March 20 (1,000 mile enduro) at Sebring Raceway in Sebring, Fla. — but none on the 2020-21 provisional calendar.

Michelin also will play a role in the WEC as the designated tire supplier to the WEC's "hypercar" class, which debuts in the 2020-21 season as the series' top prototype class, replacing the LMP1 category of the past decade.

Michelin also is the designated race tire supplier for the IMSA WeatherTech Series, the predominantly North American-based counterpart to the WEC.

In the WRC — where Michelin has been the "de facto" designated tire supplier for the past decade — the FIA has named Pirelli the series' sole tire supplier starting with 2021 season.