Goodyear has chosen to rejoin the sportscar racing scene at it’s uppermost category, which is the FIA World Endurance Championship, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The American tire brand has won Le Mans 14 times, plus winning 368 Formula 1 races throughout the years, with 1998 being the latest.

The brand, however, is a sister company to Dunlop, who already is active in the European Le Mans Series plus the LMP2 category in FIA WEC. The two brands are unlikely to start battling each other in the same races, but it’s still unclear if this outfacing Dunlop as a name in sportscar racing, to put more focus on the Goodyear brand. We saw that happen some years ago in WRC, when BF Goodrich Tires replaced Michelin – which is also two brands within the same company.

Dunlop is currently delivering tires for NASCAR in the USA, which they have done ever since 1954, being the sole tire supplies since 1997. They are also active in other parts of the sport, like truck racing – not the trucks racing in NASCAR, but real trucks in the FIA European Truck Racing Championship.

The Goodyear name will make its debut in the FIA World Endurance Championship in just over one month time, when the Prologue is run at Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, ahead of the season start on 1 September at Silverstone.