LONG BEACH, Calif. - The same Firestone alternate tire compound utilized at St. Petersburg was on the Long Beach circuit. Note to IndyCar Series teams/drivers: it's the only time that will occur in the remaining five road/street events.

Just another factor to keep participants strategizing.

"This was not done for the drivers' or the crews' convenience," Firestone Racing executive director Al Speyer said. "It's for the fans. It's to create more interest and hopefully more passing and different strategies. When everybody has the same car, the same engines and if they all have the same tires at the same time, they all do the same thing. That's what the alternate tire program does - puts different people on different tires at different times.

"I'm sure during the course of the year we'll hear a team or a driver not too happy about it, but again it wasn't to make them happy. It was to make a better show for the fans."

That goal was accomplished at both street venues - in both the three rounds of qualifying and the races.

"What we suspected but weren't fully aware of the impact was in the knockout-style qualifying where clearly there were teams that had to put alternates on just to advance to the next session," Speyer said. "That was a completely new dimension. We got feedback from some of the drivers that the grip, cornering and acceleration they had on the alternates was nothing like they had ever felt for years."

Game plans varied, but tire strategy played a role in the outcome of both the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg and Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. On the 1.968-mile, 11-turn Long Beach temporary street circuit, there proved to be a gap of almost a second in lap times between the alternate and primary tires (the primaries were of a harder compound than used at St. Pete) during the 85-lap race.

Dario Franchitti's Target Chip Ganassi Racing crew played it perfectly. He started from the front row on alternates and pitted early (Lap 16) to change to the primaries, on which the team/driver thought the No. 10 car was better balanced.

"The pace of the reds was fabulous, and they did just what we expected," said Franchitti, who posted his ninth IndyCar Series victory and first on a street/road course. "They were very, very fast, but they didn't have the longevity that the primary Firestone Firehawk tires did. The primaries were consistent, and we ran and we ran with them with no drop-off whatsoever."

Each entry must declare to the sanctioning Indy Racing League within an hour after qualifying on which dry-condition tire spec it intends to start the race. All cars must use at least one primary set and one new alternate set during the race, each for a minimum of two green flag laps.

"What we suspected was exactly what we found in St. Pete," Speyer said. "It varied quite a bit from car to car or team to team. There's more difference between drivers and car set-up than there is between the tires, and it's how you use them."

Firestone provides all teams with computer printouts showing how drivers performed on the primary tires and the alternates.

"We'll try different things, get feedback from the teams, discuss it with the league and then try to make the alternate program even better for 2010," Speyer said.

*Original Story on Indycar.com