This weekend’s FIA WEC action at São Paulo sees Goodyear reach a key milestone for its LMGT3 programme, with the debut of its new red-labelled Hard compound tyre.
The introduction of the Hard (previously referred to as the Medium Plus) follows a season and a half of use for the original Medium-spec LMGT3 Eagle F1 Supersports in the young category.
Goodyear has had the Hard tyre in its locker since the second half of the 2024 season, after a lengthy development phase which included track testing at circuits across Europe. However, it opted to gather more data with the Medium across the full FIA WEC and ELMS seasons and save the new compound for 2025.
It’s a tyre that has been designed to be most effective on more aggressive surfaces and/or tracks with higher sliding energy. Thus, Goodyear feels that this weekend’s encounter on the 4.3 km Interlagos circuit presents an ideal opportunity to give it its global race debut.
“Last year, we tried to get a feel for the cars as much as possible, and decided to run at each circuit with the Medium compound to understand which ones are more demanding compared to our simulation data,” Goodyear’s endurance racing boss, Mike McGregor, told DSC.
“Meanwhile, in the background, we worked with Ferrari, BMW and Porsche, on the Hard and later gave the opportunity to the other manufacturers to run this new tyre before it was physically introduced.
“If you look at the nature of São Paulo, it’s the right place for this debut. It’s been resurfaced twice since we were there last year. They resurfaced the entire circuit, but then part of it had to be resurfaced again afterwards. We don’t even know yet what the surface is going to look like when we arrive, but it’s a really demanding track.
“The elevation change that you have there, the way that it’s so heavily loaded on the right-hand side tyres, should give the teams much more opportunity to exploit performance over longevity.”
Important to note is that even after the Hard’s debut, Goodyear will be sticking to its strategy of selecting a single compound for each race. This differs from rival brand Michelin, which brings two of its three slick Hypercar compounds to every FIA WEC race (aside from Le Mans, where the whole set is available).
Nevertheless, McGregor believes that the teams will continue to have an array of strategic options at their disposal with the Hard.
“I’m really interested to see how some of the races will play out,” he said. “I think you know, with what we see in chassis manufacturers, that certain cars take certain advantages at certain tracks.
“There’ll be some interesting parts of bringing the Eagle Hard specification, because it will mean certain teams can exploit the performance at different periods in the stint. You may see some cars more competitive in the first stint, and others find pace in the second because of the way they can exploit the performance out of this tyre.”
After this weekend, the Hard has been selected for use at Round 6 of the season at Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas and the season finale in Bahrain in November. The yellow-labelled Medium, meanwhile, will return at the Fuji Speedway in October.
“We’ve tested the Hard in a very broad range of temperatures,” McGregor explains. “We’ve run it as low as five degrees in testing to make sure that it’s still got that versatility, it’s still got that drivability.
“We expect that same feedback on the other end of the scale at places like CoTA, too. In Austin last year, we saw extreme ambient temperatures of 46-47 degrees, and we expect it to be suited to that. And then we’re going out to Bahrain, which everybody knows is tough in terms of tyre degradation.”
It’s all about choosing the optimum tyre for the right track, as we don’t expect everything to stay the same each year
If the Hard proves to be as versatile as advertised in practice, we may see it used more often in 2026, as over the off-season, Goodyear will reassess which circuits would best suit its strengths.
The WEC season opener in Qatar, scheduled for later in March, means higher temperatures are expected, making it “an open question.” Spa, even with its resurfacing, may also be up for debate. There is also the potential for it to appear for the first time in the European Le Mans Series.
“It’s all about choosing the optimum tyre for the right track, as we don’t expect everything to stay the same each year,” McGregor added. “We will decide long in advance, though, because we don’t believe in freighting tyres around the world for the sake of it.”
The debut of the new LMGT3 Hard comes at a busy time for Goodyear’s sportscar racing division. In addition to developing tyres for the next-gen LMP2 ruleset in 2028, next year it will begin supplying the FIA WEC-supporting Legends of Le Mans series and track testing its 2027 LMGT3 tyres.
A big focus for the 2027 LMGT3 range concerns its green credentials. At present, the aim is to increase the amount of sustainable materials used to an impressive 68 per cent.
“We’re very close to that target on development products, after starting LMGT3 with 33 per cent,” McGregor summarised.
“We’re a tyre manufacturer at the end of the day, and I think if you look at the heritage of Goodyear, it’s about performance and what we deliver within that performance. Sustainability is a huge focus for us, but at the same time, the tyres need to have that level of performance. We’ve learned a great deal in recent years.
“As soon as we signed off the Eagle Hard, we started work on the next era of GT3 tyres, and I’m confident we can get there and perhaps even exceed that target.”
Image credits: DPPI, Goodyear and Paul Foster
