Goodyear Eagle F1 SuperSport: The Tyre Porsche Trusts to Tame the 911

Few cars carry as much expectation as the legendary Porsche 911. For more than sixty years it has been the benchmark against which every other sports car is quietly measured — a shape so familiar it borders on iconography, and an engineering philosophy so stubbornly consistent that the modern car still mounts its flat-six engine behind the rear axle, just as the original did in 1963. 

But while the basic recipe remains the same, much has changed under the metal. With each evolution the formula has been tweaked and sharpened, turning a quirky rear-engined coupe into one of the most complete performance machines money can buy. So, when Porsche chooses a tyre for its most extreme 911s, that choice says a great deal about the engineering prowess behind the rubber. 

That’s why, when Porsche needed a tyre worthy of the 911 GT3, GT3 RS, and the savage GT2 RS, Goodyear's Eagle F1 SuperSport family got the call. And that fit between car and rubber turns out to be no coincidence at all. 

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An Icon Refined, Not Reinvented 

The genius of the 911 has never been reinvention. Porsche could have abandoned the rear-engined layout decades ago; instead it spent generation after generation engineering away the layout's weaknesses while amplifying its strengths. The result is a car that feels both deeply familiar and noticeably better with every iteration. 

That patient evolution is exactly what makes the 911 so great. The rear-biased weight distribution — once the car's great party trick and occasional villain — has been honed into phenomenal traction out of corners and steering feel that reads the road with a clarity few rivals can match, flattering keen drivers while rewarding great ones. The same refinement has made it the rare exotic you can genuinely live with: usable around town, comfortable over long distances, yet utterly transformed the moment a good road appears. Layered on top is a motorsport record almost without equal — Le Mans wins, decades of GT racing and rally success — which is why the GT3, GT3 RS and GT2 RS feel less like road cars with a body kit and more like homologated racers issued a number plate. 

That same instinct for relentless improvement is exactly what makes the Eagle F1 SuperSport range such a fitting partner. The Eagle F1 badge has anchored Goodyear's performance line-up for years, but the current SuperSport portfolio represents its sharpest expression yet — Goodyear's flagship Ultra-Ultra-High-Performance (UUHP) family, split across three rungs of intensity: SuperSport, SuperSport R and the track-biased SuperSport RS.

Image credit: Goodyear

Why OE Approval Is the Ultimate Compliment 

It is easy to underestimate what original equipment (OE) approval really means. A manufacturer like Porsche doesn't simply pick a tyre off the shelf — it sets a brief, and then makes the tyre maker earn the fitment. 

And that bar is already daunting. Even a standard 911 Carrera is one of the most exacting and accomplished cars on sale, so being chosen for that model would be an achievement in itself. But the GT cars are a different proposition entirely. The GT3, GT3 RS and GT2 RS are the hardcore, motorsport-bred end of the range — stripped back, aerodynamically aggressive and tuned for the track, where lap times, braking stability and absolute steering precision are scrutinised down to the last tenth. They demand a tyre that can transmit far more power, survive far higher cornering loads and deliver far sharper feedback than any road car has a right to.

Image credit: Goodyear

Goodyear's modern relationship with the 911 began in 2019, when the brand-new Eagle F1 SuperSport RS was homologated for the 911 GT2 RS and GT3 RS, marking Goodyear's return to the supercar segment. The final sign-off came only after lap times were set at Porsche's own Nardò test track in Italy, with the tyres engineered at Goodyear's development centre in Hanau, Germany. 

The bar was punishing. The GT2 RS demanded a tyre that could put 690 bhp and 553 lb ft of torque cleanly onto the road through the rear wheels alone — and with peak torque arriving from as low as 2,500 rpm, there was nowhere to hide. As Goodyear's OE team noted at the time, very few tyres are genuinely competitive under conditions that severe. Earning praise from a company as unrelenting in its pursuit of improvement as Porsche is, in short, is about as strong an endorsement as the tyre industry offers. 

A Partnership That Kept Evolving 

Crucially, this wasn't a one-off. The relationship has deepened with each new generation of 911. 

In 2021, Porsche approved the Eagle F1 SuperSport R as original equipment for the then-latest 911 GT3, fitting 255/35 R20 tyres up front and chunky 315/30 R21s at the rear. Goodyear's engineers leaned heavily on the company's motorsport know-how, designing a tyre built to satisfy the most demanding requirements for braking distances and lap times while still delivering the immersive, communicative feel that makes a GT3 such a thrill to drive. 

Then, in 2024, the partnership reached its current high point with the arrival of the formidable 911 GT3 RS. Rather than supplying a single fitment, Goodyear developed a two-tyre choice for the car — the SuperSport R and the SuperSport RS — both fully road-legal and both carrying Porsche's N0 homologation marking. Owners can effectively tune the car to their habits: the SuperSport RS for the most track-focused, dry-weather precision, and the SuperSport R for buyers who want serious performance with a touch more everyday usability.

What Makes the Rubber So Special

The headline figures are impressive, but it's the engineering detail that explains how these tyres handle a 911's worst-case scenarios. 

The SuperSport RS is built around a pure racing compound that pairs very stiff tread elements with a reduced tread depth — a combination designed to maximise cornering g-forces while keeping the tread from squirming under load, which translates into both ferocious grip and razor-sharp steering response. Underneath, an optimised profile and a strong Aramid winding work to hold the contact patch's pressure distribution steady across different speeds and conditions, while a substantial outer shoulder channels the enormous lateral forces of hard cornering. 

The SuperSport R, meanwhile, achieves its grip through a high-friction compound, with bridges built into the inner groove of the tread pattern to limit block deformation under extreme cornering and keep the footprint consistent — the source of the precise, trustworthy steering feel Goodyear was chasing. It's the tyre for drivers who want track-day ability without sacrificing the breadth of a road tyre. 

Both tyres point at the same goal: giving the driver the confidence to lean on a 911's astonishing capability and actually enjoy it. 

Conclusion: Two Apex Products, Perfectly Matched

The pairing of the Porsche 911 and the Goodyear Eagle F1 SuperSport range is a meeting of two engineering philosophies that prize performance above all else. One has spent six decades perfecting a single brilliant idea; the other has climbed to the very top of the performance-tyre ladder through the same patient process. When the most extreme 911s leave the factory on Eagle F1 rubber, it's the clearest possible signal that car and tyre have reached the summit together. 

Ready to put Goodyear's flagship performance know-how under your own car? 

You don't need a GT3 RS to feel the benefit of the engineering Porsche signed off on. The same Eagle F1 SuperSport pedigree — and the wider Eagle F1 range it sits above — is available for everything from hot hatches to grand tourers, so you can bring a little of that homologated precision to whatever you drive. Enter your  registration or  tyre size at Blackcircles.com to find out which Goodyear options fit your car, with fitting booked at a garage near you.

Hero image credit: Goodyear