According to rubbernews.com, Bridgestone Americas is bringing its ENLITEN Technology to Firestone Firehawk racing tires for the 2026 INDYCAR season, aiming to reduce environmental impact while keeping track performance intact.
ENLITEN swaps petroleum-based processing oils for renewable soybean oil in tire compounds, and it incorporates recycled steel in the bead wire that anchors the tire to the wheel. Bridgestone is also using recycled carbon black, reclaimed from end-of-life tires, as a reinforcing material in the tread and carcass compounds.
The company said the guayule shrub material, which had been used in sidewalls, will now be applied across both primary and alternate compounds for oval, road, and street-course tires. Visually, all ENLITEN-equipped Firehawk tires will wear an ENLITEN logo, while alternate tires will be identified by red bands.
Firestone Racing plans to produce about 37,000 ENLITEN-equipped Firehawk tires for the 2026 season. More than 32,000 are slated for the NTT INDYCAR Series, covering 60 specifications across an 18-race schedule. Roughly 5,000 will go to INDY NXT by Firestone, in 18 specifications for 17 races.
The rollout begins at the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. The special tire for the Indianapolis 500, however, will retain its ISCC PLUS-certified butadiene and bio-styrene derived from palm oil waste, and will continue to use recycled steel in the bead wire.
Bridgestone says nearly 100 percent of used race tires are recycled, finding second lives as playground surfaces, commercial and residential flooring, and other rubber products. The racing tires are produced at the Bridgestone Advanced Tyre Production Center in Akron, Ohio.
Bridgestone positions motorsports as a proving ground for sustainable materials that can migrate to consumer lines. One example is the Firestone Firehawk Indy 500 V2 summer tire, which the company has tied to its track development work.
Bridgestone Motorsports director Lisa Boggs described Firestone Racing as a mobile lab for extreme-condition testing, where innovations are vetted under real-world competition before broader application.
