Firestone tires at an INDYCAR race

©2026 IMS/INDYCAR Photo

Racing improves street vehicles by serving as an extreme‑duty testing laboratory, where new innovations and technologies are pushed to their limits before making their way into consumer cars. From crumple zones and seat belts to aerodynamics and turbocharging, nearly every major component of a modern vehicle owes at least part of its development to motorsports. Tires are no exception: Bridgestone, one of the world’s largest tire manufacturers, uses motorsports to pressure‑test and refine tire innovations before applying those lessons to everyday road‑going tires.

Bridgestone’s Firestone brand is a real-world “mobile lab” that serves as a proving ground not only for performance, but for enhanced sustainability—validating renewable and recycled materials under the most extreme conditions. In 2026, Bridgestone’s race tire engineering team will design, develop, and deliver approximately 36,000 tires to be used on the racetracks—that’s a lot of development data. (Nearly 100% of the used tires are recycled or repurposed for new applications beyond the track, including sport surfaces, flooring, and other rubber products.)

The lessons learned from motorsports help the company accelerate the development of scalable solutions that reduce waste and decrease dependence on natural resources. For example, this year’s race tire incorporates key components of the company’s ENLITEN Technology (already offered on select Bridgestone/Firestone consumer tires), including renewable soybean oil to replace petroleum-based oils traditionally used in tire compounds, as well as recycled steel and recycled carbon black. The 2026 Firehawk Indy 500 race tire, which will be used at the Indianapolis 500 next month, will once again feature two ISCC PLUS-certified monomers (butadiene and bio-styrene, produced from waste residue of palm oil processing) along with recycled steel bead wire.

There’s a lot to digest, so I reached out to two of the company’s experts for some additional insight. First, I asked Matt Holland, Director, Go-to-Market Sustainability Strategy, Bridgestone Americas, about sustainability and technology transfer:

Is Bridgestone seeing sustainability become a purchasing factor in performance tires, not just passenger tires?

“Sustainability is a consideration for many of our customers across all segments, from fleets that are looking to lower their carbon footprint and drive efficiency, to consumers that want a tire that incorporates innovative renewable and recycled materials and still provides the excellent performance they expect from Bridgestone.

“The materials and approaches that are being tested in our motorsports tires aren’t just for performance tires. We view motorsports as a “mobile lab” — a vital proving ground for advanced materials and technologies, shaping innovations and tire development that extend far beyond the racetrack.

“Our ENLITEN™ Technology is designed to deliver customized performance while promoting a focus on enhanced sustainability across the Bridgestone and Firestone tire portfolios. This includes commercial and race tires, as well as consumer products like the Turanza EV, which is an all-season tire for electric vehicles that supports the use of 50% renewable and recycled materials, and the Potenza Sport on the Audi eTron GT that supports the use of 55% renewable and recycled materials.”

Which of the race-tested materials or processes are most likely to scale into consumer or commercial tires?

“Some of the inputs that are featured in this season’s Firestone Firehawk race tires are already available in consumer and commercial tires. Motorsports allows us to do two things: 1) take materials that are working well in the consumer space and shine a spotlight on that solution, demonstrating that there’s no performance compromise; and 2) it allows us to put new technologies and approaches to the test.

“Soybean oil is a good example. We’ve successfully used it in consumer tires for years, replacing some of the petrochemical-derived oils with soybean oil. For example, the Turanza Prestige, which was announced in 2025, features Bridgestone’s proprietary PeakLife™ polymer compound in its tread, which is composed with soybean oil. Bringing it into motorsports allows us to test its limits, demonstrating to race fans and consumers that the sustainable materials have not impacted performance.

“Over the last three years, Firestone Firehawk Indy 500 race tires incorporated materials derived from hard-to-recycle plastics (2023) and palm oil waste residue (2024-25). The 2026 Firehawk Indy 500 race tire will once again feature two ISCC PLUS-certified monomers – butadiene and bio-styrene, produced from waste residue of palm oil processing – along with recycled steel bead wire.1

“This year’s racing tires are actually our first high-performance race tires to feature recycled carbon black recycled and recycled steel bead wire for street/road courses—a meaningful step in advancing materials that have clear potential to move from the track to everyday driving.

“In terms of what new approaches might be scaling in the near future, it depends not only on technical readiness but also on securing consistent, high-quality supplies of recycled and renewable feedstocks.”

I also reached out to Cara Krstolic, Executive Director, Race Tire Engineering and Production, and Chief Engineer, Motorsports, Bridgestone Americas, for her insight on challenges and technology identification:

What was the biggest technical challenge in incorporating bio-based and recycled inputs without compromising grip, durability, or consistency?

“When it comes to motorsports—there can be no tradeoffs. IndyCar tires must deliver outstanding traction, durability and heat resistance, all under extreme conditions.

“Incorporating new materials into an already expertly engineered tire is never a simple replacement. Even ingredients that may appear to be drop-in replacements, such as soybean oil in place of petroleum-derived oils, are validated by Bridgestone’s deliberate, step-by-step approach.

“Each new material requires extensive testing and fine-tuning to fully understand how it behaves within the tire compound and construction. This process spans material testing, modeling, testing in a compound / with a compound, tire-only testing, testing of the tire on-track, and inspection of the tire post-event. That disciplined process is what allows us to introduce more sustainable inputs while maintaining the high-performance standards demanded in motorsports.

“What’s exciting about our “mobile lab” approach is that when there’s a bio-based and/or recycled input in a tire, you’re seeing that it can perform at extreme limits with no tradeoff in performance.”

Will consumers and race fans be able to identify the new tires at the races (e.g., do they have special branding or color identifications)?

“Yes. Customers and race fans will be able to easily identify the tires by the black and white ENLITEN brand logo prominently displayed on the sidewall of Firestone Firehawk racing tires throughout the 2026 NTT INDYCAR Series and INDY NXT seasons.

“Of note, all the tires for road/street courses will have:

• 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.

“The Indy 500 race tire features the two ISCC PLUS-certified monomers produced from waste residue of palm oil processing.”

By treating the track as a high‑stakes “mobile lab,” Bridgestone is proving that renewable and recycled materials can thrive under extreme conditions, paving the way for greener, cleaner, more efficient technologies to move from the racetrack to the roads.