Tire issues plague NASCAR Cup finale, but don't blame Goodyear

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tire-issues-plague-nascar-cup-finale,-but-don't-blame-goodyear — Tire issues plague NASCAR Cup finale, but don't blame Goodyear

Goodyear brought a softer compound to Phoenix for the NASCAR Cup title-decider, and tire issues began during Friday’s practice session. However, no one was sounding the alarm to tire supplier Goodyear. Several crew chiefs admitted to pushing the limit with lower air pressures in order to gain a speed advantage, and there was a similar sentiment after Sunday’s wild finale at Phoenix.

Goodyear recommends a minimum air pressure in the tires for each race, but it’s no surprise teams were tempted to go beyond that in search of an edge.

Each of the four championship challengers experienced at least one cut tire during the race, and it was a blown tire on the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet with just a few laps to go that pushed the race into overtime.

A rundown of all the tire failures that impacted raceday

The first stage saw no issues, which emboldened teams to push the envelope, making for a chaotic second stage. It started with Chase Briscoe, then Kyle Busch, and then A.J. Allmendinger slammed the Turn 3 wall for the second time this weekend with a flat tire.

Cut tires for both of the Dillon brothers soon followed, with Hamlin reporting a tire being low under caution soon after.

In the final stage, Larson and Briscoe both cut tires, and a flat for Carson Hocevar forced a caution flag. Alex Bowman was next to cut a tire, and then Austin Cindric slammed the wall as he blew a tire on corner entry.

J.J. Yeley was next, and finally Byron’s race-altering tire failure with just a few laps to go. Of the eight natural cautions in the race, all but the first two were due to tires.

“It’s not their fault that we’re running the tires flat”

William Byron, Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet

Photo by: Sean Gardner / Getty Images

After the race, several drivers touched on the cause, and the answer hasn’t changed since Friday.

“Well, I think they (Goodyear) did a great job all season long,” said Hamlin, who lost the title in overtime. “It’s not their fault that we’re running the tires flat. I really applaud them and the tires that they’ve continued to bring to the racetrack and keep pushing the limits on softer, softer, to try to put it back in the drivers’ hands.

“It’s the teams. They’re the ones that come here and we test. There’s wheel force test. They keep testing the limits of really how low you can go. It would be difficult for anyone to build a tire that can withstand what we’re doing to it with this car. They’re in a really tough spot. Certainly I think, if anything, they deserve credit.”

He went on to say that “it’s not the design of the tire,” continuing to defend Goodyear. “We’re just running our tires super low because that’s where they perform the best. Everyone is testing the limits. A lot of people found it.”

Race winner Ryan Blaney echoed these comments. “Just flirting with air pressure,” he said. “These guys, that’s kind of the game. How low can you get. Just helps the long-run speed and grip. There’s kind of a basement. We have saw that a couple champ guys blew one. I think 19 and 24 blew one.

Blaney’s teammate Joey Logano agreed, blaming the teams for Sunday’s tire issues. “If you’re aggressive, you’re gonna pay the price when it comes to air-pressure. No one should be blaming Goodyear or anything like that. It’s not on them, it’s on the teams and the settings that they put in their cars. The more aggressive you are, the faster it goes and the more likely it’s gonna blow out. All of us are just trying to figure out where that edge is.”

Other factors

AJ Allmendinger, Kaulig Racing Chevrolet

Photo by: Christian Petersen / Getty Images

Rick Hendrick collected his 15th championship on Sunday as an owner with Larson, but three of his drivers experienced tire failures.

“I have to give Goodyear a lot of credit,” said Hendrick. “We’ve been trying to improve the product on track of tire wear, tire degradation, falloff of lap time, to be able to mix up different lanes, have guys that have tires wear out and all that sort of thing.

“What we do as the teams is we try to push every area to extract the grip out of the tires that we have to do. There’s several ways that you can do it: with load, with camber, with pressure. It’s one of those things where the performance side of it, there’s so much to be gained in what we have to push to get the performance out of ’em, that safety is absolutely a concern. The longevity and ability of your day to stay in the mix is, of course, a concern.”

However, ‘Mr. H.’ did note that they had increased the air pressures at one point to be what he described as ‘conservative,’ and still encountered a failure. Because of that, he pointed the finger at some other factors as well, but not Goodyear.

“Today was a really hot day,” said Hendrick. “There was a lot of punishment of load and pace in the car and in the tires. I certainly don’t think in any way that is a miss on Goodyear’s part. I think we all knew what we were all working with coming in today. And it was hot. It was the perfect conditions set to really punish the tires, with the tire they brought, with what we had on track. That’s just kind of the way it was.”

In his own press conference, Blaney also speculated that it was harder to predict due to the nature of Phoenix, with drivers cutting the dogleg and slamming the cars down onto the ground throughout the race.

“I think here is such an unknown because you have that dogleg that puts a ton of shock load on the tire,” explained Blaney. “There’s not a lot of data for that.”