Pirelli produced 4 different compounds of dry tires and 2 different wet tires. Each team got 11 sets of 2 different dry tire compounds, and 2 each of the wet compounds each weekend. Pirelli specified which compound had to be used for the race weekend. All told, they went through about 2,500 tires this season.
I imagine they change tires every stage, because there is no time to do it during race time
Depending on what kind of race, the tires get worn quickly during the race.
A burn out will ruin tires on race cars by burning up the rubber. The rubber of the tires will get worn from the friction of the pavement causing the tires to tear.
Tires are changed during an auto race because the tires get worn down by the track. It is safer to have good tires than to have tires that are worn down that could blow apart and cause accidents.
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Hankook are excellent tires. Next time you go to a car race track, or drag strip, look around and see how many tires are Hankook.
If it's a night race weekend, they'll run the Nationwide race on Friday night (if there's a Nationwide race at that track that weekend) and the Cup race on Saturday night. For daytime race weekends, the Nationwide race will be Saturday and the Cup race on Sunday.
A couple of years ago FIA changed the rule that stated a car can change the pneumathics (tires) when in pit stop during the race. Now they can only use the set of tires that they start the race with.
15 miles is 24.14 km
When you go to your Paddock, go to the section where you can enter the current race weekend. After selecting current race you will see many options you can change, such as race weekend participation level, percentage of race, and difficulty. Select difficulty (X on PS3 or A on Xbox 360). If you scroll all the way down it will display damage. Here you can select "Simulation" which is basically full damage. This will make it so that when you crash into something at full speed, your front wing isn't the only thing getting damaged. You now can wear into your tires, damage suspension, back wing, ect.
Through race #19 of the 2011 season, only Nascar Cup Series driver Ryan Newman won the pole and the race on the same weekend, that was at New Hampshire Motor Speedway during July 15th through the 17th. On July 9th, Kyle Busch won the Cup Series race in Kentucky after being awarded the pole due to qualifying being rained out. The starting lineup was set by owner's points.