Continental Tire Pit Notes - Long Beach Grand Prix

WHO’S RACING

IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship (P, GTLM & GTD classes) – April 8, 2017

TRACK

Long Beach – 1.968-mile, 11-turn temporary street course

RACE LENGTH

BUBBA burger Sports Car Grand Prix at Long Beach – 100 minutes

TIRE SETS

WeatherTech Championship –P teams will be allotted 7 sets of tires (including dry and wet tires) and GTD teams will receive 7 sets.

WHICH TIRE ARE THEY USING

Continental Tire has designated Blacks as the dry tire to be raced at Long Beach. If teams move to wet tires, the P and GTD classes will move to Blacks. This is the same tire that teams are currently scheduled to run at all other tracks (Daytona is the lone exception).

CONTINENTAL BY THE NUMBERS

• - Number of tires brought to the track (dry and wet) for two classes. This is the least number of tires Continental will bring to an IMSA race in 2017.
• – Long Beach is generally a . Look for some teams to roll the dice and double stint a set of Continental tires in order to keep heat in the tires versus going out on cold tires and taking a lap to get up to temps.
• – Average margin of victory over the last three years. In 2014, Chip Ganassi Racing won by a mere .759.
• – While the duo of Ricky and Jordan Taylor have the last two outings at Long Beach, has been the two years in a row.

DID YOU KNOW?

• Compared to a street tire, race tire treads are thin. In fact, they are about one-quarter of the depth of a traditional tire on a passenger vehicle. The sidewalls are thinner and the tire weighs half of what a street tire weighs.
• While the average passenger car will get 40,000 miles plus or minus from a set of tires, a DPi car will get a mere 75 miles (give or take) on the streets of Long Beach.

FROM THE DRIVERS SEAT

Tom Long: Long Beach is a very challenging circuit for many different reasons - mainly, the tight street circuit layout makes the walls for visibility and room for error non-existent.  Also, just like Sebring, and even more so, the pavement surface changes are extremely bumpy, making it additionally tricky for car setup and optimal handling. 

Tom Long: For Long Beach, tire strategy can be played a few different ways - since it is one of our shortest races of the season, tire degradation is less of a factor than it is during our longer endurance events.  With that said, some teams may opt to try to make it on one pit stop, not changing tires, to keep hot tires on the car for the second half of the race.  There's a gain initially not having to deal with cold slicker tires, but it will be interesting to see if those opting to do so can maintain pace at the end.