Two stints on soft tires should be mandatory on street circuits.

Unlike the soft tires used on road circuits, in that they are composed of guayule resin, a species of dicotyledonous flowering plant native to Mexico, the soft tires used on non-permanent urban circuits should be used even more extensively this year, as revealed by Racer.com.

At the six street races of the 2026 season (St. Petersburg, Arlington, Long Beach, Detroit, Markham, and Washington, D.C.), each driver will be required to use at least two sets of soft tires during the races, whereas the requirement is only one set of soft tires on permanent road courses. On ovals, only one type of tire is available, unless otherwise specified, as was the case in Nashville at the end of last season, where soft tires were introduced.

The new rule would thus allow theIndyCar This introduces a degree of uncertainty to street circuit racing, where tire degradation is usually so high that drivers prefer to use up their soft tires as quickly as possible in order to switch to the hardest available tires, thus finishing the race with a more conventional strategy. With two mandatory stints, drivers will either have to pit twice in four laps to immediately get rid of their soft tires, or, more realistically, learn to manage their tire life during the soft stints.

During the Long Beach race early last year, the majority of the field started on soft tires, and by the third lap, some drivers were pitting to swap them for hard tires, continuing the race with only hard tires at each pit stop. This added constraint could thus create new disparities between the cars at certain key moments in the race.

In 2025, the Indianapolis Grand Prix introduced another unusual requirement: the use of at least two sets of soft and two sets of hard tires, obliging each driver to make at least three pit stops. The impact on the spectacle was fairly limited; it remains to be seen whether this will be different in 2026 on street circuits.

ALSO READ > Romain Grosjean to return to IndyCar for the 2026 season