The iON Race tire shines during the Formula E night races in Tokyo

Serving as the exclusive tire supplier to the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship, Hankook Tire equipped all entries during Rounds 14 and 15 of Season 12 at the 2026 TDK Tokyo E-Prix. The street circuit event introduced night racing to the venue, presenting significant tire management challenges across shifting ambient and track temperatures.

Unsettled weather, including a Sunday thunderstorm that canceled Free Practice 3, forced teams to manage changing surface conditions as the track transitioned from wet to drying. Hankook’s iON Race tire maintained structural consistency and grip across both daytime practice runs and late-evening race sessions, demonstrating rapid warm-up characteristics during safety car restarts and evolving track grip levels.

“Bringing Formula E night racing to Tokyo for the first time made this a distinctive weekend and one of the more unusual tire assignments of our season, said Manfred Sandbichler, Senior Director of Hankook Motorsport. The contrast between afternoon running and the 20:05 races shaped how teams prepared for both events, and the iON Race managed that transition and the changing weather conditions well, delivering consistent and predictable performance as the circuit cooled through the evening.”

For Canadian tire retailers and automotive service providers, Hankook’s motorsport testing under variable street conditions directly supports the underlying technology used in its commercial iON tire lineup, engineered for consumer electric vehicle fitments.