Nearly three weeks after the 2014 season concluded, Helio Castroneves is back in his Verizon IndyCar Series car. He runs a few fast laps around the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval, and then pulls into the pit lane.
It’s instantly surrounded by an army of mechanics and engineers.
Among the mass, a Firestone tire technician visits each corner of the Team Penske car and takes readings from the Firestone Firehawk tires. She shares data with the team’s engineers and with Cara Adams, a senior project engineer at Firestone, who stands next to the team’s pit box.
And while neither Adams nor the tire technician stand a chance to win the Indianapolis 500’s famed Borg-Warner Trophy, the information they gather on days like today will go a long way in deciding who will.
“Our goal is to build upon or improve what we had at any given track,” said Dale Harrigle, Firestone's chief engineer and manager of race tire development. “We talk to the drivers. We talk to the teams. We get their feedback and we go back and try to improve the tire over what we had the previous year.”
A YEAR IN THE MAKING
Firestone’s work for the 99th Running of Indianapolis 500 began not long after Ryan Hunter-Reay took the checkered flag last May.
The company’s Akron, Ohio-based engineers and chemists evaluated the Firehawk tires used in that race and by mid-June had an idea of what compounds to test at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in order to follow Firestone’s mantra of “consistently improving the product.”
Even a product that performed flawlessly for nearly 19,000 laps of running at Indy in 2014.
“The team’s setups vary and the drivers vary in what they like, but our job is to find a tire that is good for the entire field,” Harrigle said. “Here at Indianapolis, we’ve brought in last year’s winner Ryan Hunter-Reay, last year’s pole winner Ed Carpenter. We try to pick drivers and teams that have run consistently well over the years at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.”
Following the Sept. 23-24 test, Harrigle and his team will evaluate the feedback and data and determining which compounds will play a key role in shaping not only Indianapolis but every other oval on the schedule.
“All of our compounds at each track are related,” he said. “The relationship with the teams is of critical importance,” he said. “We work really closely with the teams and drivers to get the feedback and that’s what helps build on the tires year over year and continue to come back with the great tires that we provide.”
READY FOR ANYTHING
But building a safe and reliable tire is just one of the concerns for Harrigle and his team of engineers at this test. The Verizon IndyCar Series teams will introduce aero kits built by engine manufacturers Chevrolet and Honda in 2015.
Though neither manufacturer is using the new technology at this test, Firestone must build a tire that is compatible to the new development.
“We’ve been working with the Verizon IndyCar Series and the engine manufacturers so we’ll know where they’re going to be with aero kits,” Harrigle said. “When we put the car through longer runs, we’ll work be working as closely as we can to what we’ll see in 2015.”
And they’re also doing research in the Verizon IndyCar Series’ search to break the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s one-lap speed record by the 100th Running of the Indianapolis 500 in 2016.
“We’ve been working with the Verizon IndyCar Series to determine just what Firestone’s role in trying to achieve that goal (of breaking the IMS track record),” Harrigle said. “We actually have a few things here that are working towards that goal. We’re looking that far ahead.
“We’re trying a few things that we won’t use next year, but we’ll have it in the toolbox for 2016 as INDYCAR refines what they want to do to achieve their goals.”