Pre-Race Notes: The Thermal Club
The NTT INDYCAR® SERIES returns to The Thermal Club as an official points-paying race March 21-23 after debuting in 2024 as a non-championship exhibition event . Firestone is supplying nearly 1,500 race tires for The Thermal Club INDYCAR Grand Prix practices, qualifying and the 65-lap race near Palm Springs, California. The Twin Palms layout on the 17-turn (8 lefts, 9 rights), 3.067-mile permanent road course features sweepers, tight corners, long straightaways, and elevation changes.
Each NTT INDYCAR SERIES entry will receive the following allocation of Firestone Firehawk race tires:
- Primary (black sidewall): 6 sets per entry (1 extra set for rookies)
- Alternate (red sidewall): 4 sets per entry
- Rain (gray sidewall): 5 sets per entry
Firestone Racing provides a real-time tire tracker at Livetiming.net/firestone for media and fans to follow tire strategies in qualifying and the race. As per INDYCAR rules, each entry must use one set of primary and one set of new (sticker) alternate tires for at least two laps in the race.
Notes from Cory Williams, Principal Program Engineer:
For last year’s exhibition format with heat races, only primary tires were provided. For this weekend’s event, we are supplying both Firestone Firehawk primary and alternate (red) tires as we do at all permanent road courses.
Both tires have the same construction as the primary tire provided for the 2023 open test and the 2024 exhibition event at the Thermal Club. Each will have a compound which is new to the unique Thermal track.
The new compound on the primary tire is expected to exhibit a slight decrease in grip and an improved wear rate as compared to last year’s version. The alternate (softer) tire compound will provide more grip with a slightly higher rate of wear as compared to the 2024 primary tire. With the introduction of the primary and alternate tires for Thermal this year, there will be different rates of drop-off providing a gap between the (harder) primary and (softer) alternate tires similar to what we have seen at other road course events.