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IndyCar tyre supplier Firestone intends to increase grip levels for next year's Indianapolis 500 as a first step towards new record speeds at the venue.

The series hopes that the current Indy qualifying speed record might be beaten for the race's 100th anniversary year in 2016.

Firestone is carrying out a development test at Indianapolis this week with Dario Franchitti, Simon Pagenaud, Tony Kanaan, Marco Andretti, Will Power and Justin Wilson.

The firm's chief racing engineer Dale Harrigle said the first steps towards the 2016 speed increase were getting underway.

"IndyCar has come up with this plan that they want to slowly creep the speeds up at Indianapolis and we want to be on the forefront of that curve," Harrigle said.

"We want to be working with them to see what we need to do now to develop for the future years when the speeds increase.

"IndyCar has kept us in the forefront of aero kits and we've been talking with them about how they think it's going to affect the tyre.

"We have a pretty good window to operate in. We'll stay on top of it."

Harrigle confirmed that a grip increase for the 2014 Indy 500 tyre was in the pipeline.

"Tyre performance was good this May and we think we can make it a little better," he said.

Arie Luyendyk set the current Indy track record of 237.498 mph in 1996. This year's pole position lap was a 228.762 mph.