Return of alternate oval tires spices up strategy options for Nashville

The IndyCar Series and Firestone are bringing back the use of multiple tire compounds for this weekend's Borchetta Bourbon Music City Grand Prix at Nashville Superspeedway.

It’s something the series has used occasionally in recent years on some ovals; starting with World Wide Technology Raceway in 2023, it returned at Nashville in 2024 and '25, and mirrors IndyCar’s standard practice on road and street courses where teams receive sets of the harder and more durable primary compound and sets of the softer, faster, but more delicate alternate compound.

The Nashville race is the first oval of the year where alternates will be deployed, and in total, each driver will receive seven sets of primary tires and five sets of the red-banded alternates to run throughout the two-day event.

For Sunday’s race, which starts once the FIFA World Cup Final concludes on FOX, each entry is required to run one set of primaries and two sets of alternates to comply with IndyCar’s rules. As long as that criteria is met, teams are free to use the different compounds as they see fit throughout the race.

“We've done this before (with two oval compounds), so it's not it's not quite as problematic as when we went in the first time, not really knowing how it would go,” Andretti Global race strategist Bryan Herta told RACER. “Judging by previous experience, Firestone brought two good tire options, and that's the key, right? If the alternates and primes are both good race options, and one exhibits maybe a little more ultimate pace, but a little higher deg, the other maybe a little more longevity, then that's great as a strategist because it gives you options to play on stint lengths and how you want to lay out your race. It worked that way last time.

A busy weekend for the engineers is in order...and then the race strategists will also have their hands full as tactics figure to evolve on the fly. James Black/Penske Entertainment

The event has another interesting element for race strategists to consider with the expansion from 225 laps around the 1.33-mile oval (300 miles) to 300 laps (400 miles), which will place a premium during Saturday’s practice sessions to learn as much as possible about the two compounds before charging into Sunday’s extended race.

With an anticipated green flag near 5:40pm ET (4:40pm local), the race will run deeper into the evening and should see something in the range of six to seven pit stops – two or three more than last year – taking place.

“The other big change for this year is we've had a slightly reduced downforce level,” Herta said. “So my expectation is we're going to see a little higher deg as a result of that. And so the questions will be and the things we want to try and answer in practice are what are the deg profiles with the prime versus the alternate? How long can we go on a set of alts versus a set of primes for ultimate pace, and then lay out the race from there.”

Practice gets under way Saturday morning where teams will have one hour of running before heading into afternoon qualifying. There’s a one-hour evening practice session to conclude the day, and then it’s an overnight wait until the World Cup-themed Sunday where a watch party at the track and driver intros during halftime will build towards the big race live on FOX.

“I don't mind having the two compounds; the engineers from Firestone do a good job of telling us what to expect, and then we try and validate that in practice, but a lot of it's just on-the-job training,” Herta added. “We're still building the picture as the race is going on, so it's not like we've got it all figured out once the green flag flies. For me as a strategist, that's where it gets interesting because the engineers are doing the heavy lifting up until the race starts, and then it’s reading the tea leaves once the race starts. Are we getting the expected performance, the expected degradation, the expected longevity? And trying to understand those things and make the right calls is where I mostly come in.

“The alts and primes give a different storyline and something else to look at. I'm really looking forward to the Nashville weekend because it has been a good race. This World Cup lead-in, and the stuff FOX is planning around it, is an opportunity to really showcase ourselves to some new people and a bigger audience. So I'm hoping that all these things play into a really interesting race where we'll see cars coming and going and passing and all the things that it's meant to create.”