NASCAR has moved before Sunday’s Cup Series race at Naval Base Coronado, adding an extra set of tires after teams completed their first serious read of the San Diego street course.
The sanctioning body informed teams on Saturday that the race allotment for the Anduril 250 will increase to six new sets of slick tires plus one set of qualifying scuffs, according to Jayski. The original plan had been five new sets and one qualifying transfer set.
San Diego tire call follows first Cup practice
The adjustment follows Friday’s 50-minute Cup practice session, the first proper chance for teams to judge tire wear and braking loads around the 3.4-mile Qualcomm Circuit layout. Kyle Larson topped that running, giving Hendrick Motorsports the early marker as NASCAR’s San Diego Cup debut found its first benchmark.
Goodyear’s pre-event notes listed the Cup race as a 75-lap, 255-mile contest, with teams using the same road-course tire specification previously run at COTA and Watkins Glen this season. The company’s original race note also underlined that all three national series would have wet-weather tires available if conditions required them.
Extra rubber changes the Sunday calculation
On a new street course, one more set can matter. It gives crew chiefs more room to react if the track surface evolves quickly, if yellow periods bunch the field, or if Sunday’s race becomes more abrasive than Friday’s short runs suggested.
The move also sharpens the strategic pressure around a weekend already defined by unknowns. The San Diego bumps had already made the street-race debut a real test, while Christopher Bell’s fitness question has added another variable after his wrist injury turned into a race-day risk.
For NASCAR, this is a practical mid-weekend correction rather than a dramatic reset. But on a course with no Cup history, it may be the difference between teams racing the track and teams simply trying to survive it.
Source: Jayski, Goodyear Racing Notes via Jayski
