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Michelin only puts their best tires in open tire classes (IMSA/WEC) because in WEC P2 and GTE-AM there is a "tire claim rule". They don't want Dunlop getting their hands on their confidential tires -- it's also why the tires are returned to Michelin after sessions and in the event of failures and teams can be fined for "losing" them. The "confidential" Dunlops are very good, but not as good as the Michelins so they aren't afraid of Michelin deconstructing/reverse-engineering the tires.
The Dunlop "customer" tires are better than the Michelin "customer".
However, the tires companies are always very coy when it comes to what exact specification tire they're going to supply to a spec-tire class for any series. Especially for IMSA as I can almost guarantee you that the tires used at Daytona will be different than the rest of schedule.
However, don't get me wrong, I'm glad to see them in the series. They should be a good upgrade from the Continentals once they're sorted out.
-mike
ps: a single "confidential" tire set costs around $10k USD (as of 2014, maybe more now) versus $2,500 for Continental/Pirellis. Of course, most of the big teams have marketing deals to offset these costs.
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