The Latest Breaking News from Firestone

This weekend’s events at Iowa will be twin 250-lap races (223.5 miles) on Saturday and Sunday around the 7/8-mile (0.894-mile) oval in Newton, Iowa.

The new tires that Firestone has brought this weekend to the recently-repaved iconic four-mile road course in Wisconsin adds another variable for teams to juggle with. Although overall times were much faster than last year, there wasn’t the expected jump in speed on alternate rubber.

Out goes the dated and dangerous rolling stock, in go some Firestone Destination X/T tires.

This weekend’s event will be the first on a new temporary street circuit in downtown Detroit, a 1.7-mile, nine-turn circuit with a split-in-two pitlane. The race will be held over 100 laps (170 miles), as opposed to the traditional double-header event format at the previous Belle Isle location.

As teams have been aggressive in chasing performance, running cars with high degrees of camber, issues have arisen with blistering seen on tyres removed from some cars, with drivers complaining of vibrations and cording of the rubber.

As teams have been aggressive in chasing performance, running cars with high degrees of camber, issues have arisen with blistering seen on tires removed from some cars, with drivers complaining of vibrations and cording of the rubber.

Rosenqvist set the fastest four-lap average of 234.081mph around the 2.5-mile oval, boasting a quickest single lap 234.534mph.

Qualifying commences at 11am local time on Saturday. Each car is given a single, four-lap run to set an average speed – and will go in an order selected by random draw on Friday night (see below).

Track action was due to start at Indianapolis Motor Speedway today at 9.00am local (Eastern) time, with first practice scheduled to run until 11:15am. But early morning rain soaked the 2.5-mile oval.

Track action was due to start today at 9.00am local (Eastern) time, with first practice scheduled to run until 11:15am. But early morning rain soaked the track.

Inevitably the rookies hit the track first, using their extra set of Firestone primaries, but then it was the Rahal Letterman Lanigan team who sprung to the fore, with first Christian Lundgaard and then Jack Harvey hitting the top of the times.