Goodyear tire failures cancel FIA touring race in Germany

NURBURG, Germany—A series of as-yet unexplained Goodyear tire failures during practice and qualifying prompted an 11th hour cancellation of the FIA World Touring Car Cup race at Germany's Nurburgring race track on May 28.

The decision to not race—taken just 15 minutes before the day's first race was to start—was based on input from representatives of the FIA Sporting and Technical departments and Goodyear Racing, the international racing series' official tire supplier.

The FIA WTCR series was scheduled to race twice on the 12.9-mile, 73-turn circuit through the Adenau Forest in northwestern Germany.

Goodyear Racing—the series' tire supplier since 2020—confirmed that it could not guarantee that the tires provided for this event would perform as intended. At the same time, Goodyear Racing said it was unable to provide conclusive reasons for the tire issues that occurred during practice and qualifying until an exhaustive process of data analysis has taken place. This process is ongoing.

A decision on whether the two races will be rescheduled as part of another event later in the season will be taken in due course.

In a statement, Goodyear Racing said: "During qualifying and free practice sessions for the FIA WTCR Race of Germany on the Nürburgring Nordschleife, a number of teams reported tire damage.

"Tires from a number of different production batches were used throughout the various sessions. There was no difference in the performance or durability between the batches.

"Following tire conditions experienced during the various sessions this week, we have conducted a preliminary traceability review of production batches reported. The analysis to date, together with the inspection of returned tires, has not identified any manufacturing issues with the specification.

"Further analysis of reported conditions in collaboration with the teams is needed before we can recommend further use of this specification in the current FIA WTCR race format. We will be collecting all tires for further analysis.

"Safety is our first consideration and we understand the importance of giving drivers the confidence they need to perform on a circuit with the specific requirements of the Nürburgring Nordschleife."

The WTCR features cars operating under Touring Car Racing (TCR) rules—front-wheel-drive, four/five-door saloons or hatchbacks using turbocharged production engines with a capacity of 1.75 to 2 liters and a maximum power output of 350hp.

Among vehicle makers with cars homologated are Alfa Romeo, Audi, Honda, Hyundai, Lynk & Co., Peugeot and Volkswagen.