Pre-Race Notes: Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach
Long Beach, California| April 17-19, 2026
The NTT INDYCAR® SERIES is in California this weekend for the 51st edition of the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. While the Firestone brand celebrates 125 years, it has been the official tire of North America’s longest-running street race for more than a quarter century.
- Firestone is providing 1,400 race tires for 25 entries taking part in practice, qualifying (including the Firestone Fast Six), and Sunday’s 90-lap (177.12-mile) race on the 1.968-mile, 11-turn street course (six left and five right turns) that runs along Long Beach’s shoreline.
- New for street races; Single-car qualifying for Firestone Fast Six:
- The fastest qualifier from Segment 2 will be the first to choose which position they would like to make their Fast Six qualifying run with subsequent choices made for the remaining positions based on the order of Segment 2 results.
- Once the qualifying order is determined, teams will make their tire selection – primary or alternate tires – prior to lining up in single-file and in order of their qualifying run, at pit out to await their qualifying attempt
- Firestone continues its efforts to explore and accelerate the use of sustainable technologies in motorsports by providing Firehawk primary and alternate (red-sidewall) race tires for the Long Beach street circuit that integrate Bridgestone global ENLITEN™ Technology.[1] Components include the following materials[2]:
- Renewable soybean oil: Replaces petroleum-based oils traditionally used in tire compounds
- Recycled steel: Used for the bead wire that anchors a race tire to a wheel
- Recycled carbon black: Reinforcement material recovered from end-of-life tires
- Firestone Racing provides a real-time tire tracker at Livetiming.net/firestone for media and fans to follow track tire strategies in qualifying and the race. As per INDYCAR rules, each entry must use one set of primary and two sets of alternate tires for at least two laps in street course races.
Each NTT INDYCAR SERIES entry will receive the following allocation of Firestone Firehawk race tires:
- Primary (black sidewall): 5 sets per entry (Rookies receive 1 extra set for Practice 1)
- Alternate (red sidewall): 5 sets per entry
- Rain (gray sidewall): 5 sets per entry
Notes from Cara Krstolic, Chief Engineer and Director of Race Tire Engineering and Production:
“The primary Firestone Firehawk tires that drivers will race on the streets of Long Beach are the same street course tires construction and compounds that were tested at Sebring and provided for the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Pete and Arlington.
They are similar to what we had here in 2025 but now incorporate ENLITEN Technology with the addition of sustainable materials, including the use of soybean oil in production of the tires.
The red-sidewall alternate tires are expected to have improved compound durability as compared to the alternate tires we had here last year. They should provide more grip and increased drop-off from the primary compound.”
