Hand: Extending Tire Life Will Be Key to Sebring Success

Photo: Wes Duenkel/Ford

Joey Hand believes that extending tire life over multiple stints will be key to success in this weekend’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring presented by Cadillac given IMSA and Michelin’s new-for-2024 reduced allocations and forecasted high ambient temperatures.

IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTD Pro and GTD teams are limited to only 15 sets of Michelin’s new Pilot Sport Pro GT H1 compound for the entire event, marking a 21 percent reduction over the 19 sets of tires allowed in last year’s race.

The season-long sustainability move by IMSA and Michelin was also felt in January’s Rolex 24 at Daytona, which resulted in teams double stinting tires.

Hand, who teams up with Dirk Mueller and Fred Vervisch in the No. 65 Multimatic Motorsports Ford Mustang GT3, said the forecasted near 90-degree Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) temperatures for Saturday’s around-the-clock enduro will make tire longevity even more crucial.

“What we’ve been seeing from the tire side, it’s going to be hot here,” he told Sportscar365. “We don’t know what tire deg is going to be like.

“The thing that stands out is that we don’t have a lot of tires from the allotment.

“Immediately from my mind, it’s ‘I want to be the guy that is the best on a stint.’ I think it’s going to be a big one here because this place is not easy on tires to start with.

“Now that it’s going to be 90 degrees, which is going to be one of the hotter ones we’ve done here probably, that’s going to be one of the things we’re going to focus on, seeing what the tire life is in these conditions and then trying to make it go longer than others.”

Hand added: “I don’t think that’s any secret. Everybody’s trying to do the same thing.

“The difference is when you have a new car, you’re still trying to learn those things. If we ran these cars for three years, we’d have a much better idea like some of the other competitors.”

Hand said there’s still “a lot to learn” within the Ford Multimatic camp, which is only in its second race together following the Mustang GT3’s competition debut in January’s Rolex 24 at Daytona.

“You get the feeling when we walked into Daytona, you’re with a program that a lot of us did the Ford GT together and Multimatic has done a lot of things successfully of late,” he said.

“Everybody’s like, ‘OK, let’s go. It’s a continuation.’

“But we all have to remember that it’s a brand-new program. Things like the tire, even from last year that we did a lot of the testing on, now we have the new tire.

“People don’t know a lot about it but we’re still learning that also.

“I don’t think there’s anything big that stands out to me. It’s more still trying to figure out [details].”

Mueller: Ford Learned “Hell of a Lot” in Ford Mustang GT3 Debut

Hand’s long-time co-driver Mueller believes the team is in a better position heading into the Sebring race although admitted they’re “still learning” about the car.

“From my side, I think we learned a hell of a lot, with the new tire,” he said. “We didn’t spend much time last year on just going for performance.

“All of the [testing] purpose was endurance and getting mileage and getting the parts approved. I think we did a good job on that.

“The biggest thing which was obvious [in the Rolex 24] was the rear bonnet. In one lap [it happened] on two cars and they were side-drafting.

“Honestly this was something we hadn’t tested in testing, so it was something new. This has been fixed and it was basically the only real issue we had.

“Now we’re here in Sebring with a different race track, different heat.

“We’re still learning the car and still trying to get performance.”

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John