For the past 28 years, the winning car at the 24 Hours of Le Mans has triumphed using Michelin rubber.
The French manufacturer, which is the exclusive tyre supplier of Hypercar having established itself as the dominant player during the LMP1 era, is beginning a new phase of its relationship with the race this year, as it debuts its latest generation of Pilot Sport Endurance slicks.
All three compounds of the new-for-2026 rubber, with their headline usage of 50% renewable and recycled materials, will be present at the Circuit des 24 Heures du Mans this month, for their biggest test to-date.
So far this season, the tyres have proven to be a key talking point across the opening races of both the FIA World Endurance Championship and IMSA Sportscar Championship. It’s been noticeable, though, how little of this talking could be classified as a complaint, with teams instead focusing on how best to extract performance from the new rubber, which, with its promise of both better warm-up and consistency, have refreshed the strategic playbook.
Given the unique nature of Le Mans, no one in the 18-car Hypercar field can truly be confident that they’ve mastered the updated tyres just yet, especially given even the Test Day and Free Practice likely won’t be reflective of track conditions during the race.
“It’s only the start of the season, but the 24 Hours of Daytona, the 12 Hours of Sebring in IMSA, as well as the 6 Hours of Imola and the 6 Hours of Spa went very well,” Pierre Alves, Michelin’s endurance racing programme manager tells DSC.
“Consistency has been significantly improved, without any drop in performance. We managed up to three stints at Imola; Toyota could have tried for four, and we’re aiming for at least the same at Le Mans. We can also confirm that the temperature range in which the medium compound operates is significantly wider compared to the 2025 tyre.”
One key aspect of the 2026 tyre is its role in continuing endurance racing’s legacy as a test bed for new technologies, as Michelin works towards developing more sustainable future production offerings.
Last year, Michelin’s consumer tyres contained 32% bio-based or recycled materials, up 1% per cent, or 30,000 ‘physical’ tonnes of renewable or recycled materials, from 2024, with the target set that this figure will reach 100% by 2050, and the end goal of manufacturing tyres almost entirely from other tyres.
“I hadn’t set a 50% target for our in-house teams,” Alves explains. “My job is to use the Hypercar platform to test more things whilst improving track performance. Our development engineers were tasked with finding a way to produce at least 25,000 Hypercar tyres each year for three years, using materials of consistent quality over time. The condition was that performance had to be at least the same, whilst improving warm-up, consistency and longevity.”
Early in development, Michelin experimented with tyres of up to 71% renewable or recyclable materials, but has settled on this 50% value as the ideal compromise between the many factors which influence tyre production.
Each Hypercar tyre can be made up of up to 200 different ingredients, with key renewable and recycled materials includes recycled steel, recycled carbon block, pyrolysis oils, silica derived from rice husks, sunflower oil, orange peel, lemon peel and natural rubber. The tyre carcass also comes partly from recycling, as it contains a plastic which is also used to make drink bottles.
In total, 30,000 tyres will be used by teams in 2026, with them all being made by hand at Michelin’s Cataroux plant. Rather than being purchased outright, teams effectively pay a licence fee to use the tyres from Michelin for €1,000,000 a year, as part of an effort to preserve the technical secrets which have made the Pilot Sport Endurance range so successful.
“Endurance tyres are entirely manufactured, in other words, made by hand,” Alves explains.
“The various rubber compounds are introduced without a mixer, then the pre-formed rubber plies arrive in parallel, including metal wires and reinforcements. Several plies, made of different materials and at different angles, are combined into a single unit, which is then sent to an assembly station. The operator layers several plies using a laser guide to form the tyre carcass. All these plies are positioned with extreme precision, with a tolerance of less than 0.1 millimetres.
“The carcass is a multi-layered structure comprising plies, cords and metal reinforcements, which are heat-sealed into a thin layer of rubber. Materials such as Kevlar are also used. Once the carcass is formed, the ‘sidewall’ rubber is added to the sides, which is different from that of the tread. This rubber is also highly technical, comprising a bead and a rubber layer that wraps around it to form a very rigid structure.
“This is the contact rubber, which comes into contact with the rim. The sidewall rubber is highly technical and acts as a shock absorber as it withstands all the flexing of the tyre. It extends to the tyre shoulder, where the tread rests. All the rubber components are bonded ‘wet’, then the tyre is placed in a mould before being steam-cured for around twenty minutes at 180°C. This allows the rubber to bond together, forming a tyre ready for the track.”
Despite being handmade, Michelin has no doubts about the consistency from tyre-to-tyre, due to its strict quality control process.
“All the ‘raw’ materials come from the same supplier, with the same reference number,” Alves states. “This is how we achieve consistent quality; everything is strictly controlled to prevent any potential deviations in the process.
And with the 2026 tyres now in competition, attention has already turned to Michelin’s next generation of endurance rubber, which is set to debut in 2029 with additional new technologies.
Assisting the development process of this tyre is one of the many roles that Michelin’s engineers will play during Le Mans week, where, with over 40 hours of track time for 18 Hypercars, and a wide variety of track conditions expected, plenty of data can be gathered.
“We pay very close attention to the condition of the tyres coming off the track,” says Alves.
“The first step is a visual inspection. A hot tyre doesn’t look the same as one that’s cold. Tyre pressure, camber, the stresses the tyre has undergone, the car’s settings… all of that comes into play.
“Next, we measure the tyres using a laser and enter the data into our databases. Then we cut the tyre, layer by layer, to ensure that nothing has shifted and that the carcass hasn’t been damaged. It’s a matter of verifying performance but also of safety. And then all the data collected is used to feed into a virtual tyre model, which is constantly evolving and will help us define the next generation of tyres. This is what we call track correlation, using a virtual tyre model – a sort of digital twin – that evolves every day.”
This analysis runs deep enough that Michelin staff are capable of identifying which car, and even which driver, a tyre has come from, owing to the unique way which each uses their rubber.
“There is a ‘signature’ wear pattern for each car and even for each driver,” Alves explains.
“Our technicians are so highly trained and professional that they are able, much like a sommelier with wine, to recognise which car or even which driver used them when everyone is driving on the same track.”
Images courtesy of DPPI/Michelin
