Goodyear: From Le Mans Legend to BTCC Champion

Competition has shaped Goodyear from the very start, and it’s this restless pursuit of performance that has carried it to the summit of some of motorsports greatest events. 

However, while it would be easy for the firm to trade on past glory alone, Goodyear is still winning where it counts right now. To understand why Goodyear’s latest tyres feel the way they do on the road, you have to start with where the brand has spent the last hundred years: flat out, against the clock. 

A Record Earned at Every Altitude

The trophy cabinet alone makes the case. Goodyear's records spans 14 wins at Le Mans, 368 Formula One Grand Prix victories, a long run of NASCAR and NHRA titles, and even the rather surreal honour of being the first tyre to touch the surface of the moon.

Image credit: Goodyear

The Formula One Years That Became Legend 

Nowhere is that pedigree more prominent than in Formula One. For around three decades Goodyear was part of the very fabric of the sport, present through the great rivalries of Hunt and Lauda in the 1970s and, later, Senna and Prost in the 1980s and 90s. Perhaps the most glowing edorsement of all, is the fact that during the era when teams chose their own rubber, Goodyear supplied every major name on the grid — Ferrari, McLaren, Benetton, Jordan and Williams among them — amassing an unbeaten 368 wins and a vast reserve of track knowledge in the process.  

The esteem was mutual: F1 Team Founder Eddie Jordan once called Goodyear very likely the longest-serving and most supportive company Formula One had ever known. That loyalty extended to the world's toughest endurance race, too, with 14 Le Mans victories between 1965 and 1997 and a Brabham partnership — begun with Sir Jack and continuing today through his son David — that has now run for more than half a century.  

Still on the Grid, Still Winning 

It would be easy to leave the story in the soft focus of nostalgia. But Goodyear is very much on the grid today. It is the exclusive tyre supplier to the LMGT3 category in the World Endurance Championship, where race-bred versions of the Porsche 911, Ferrari 296 GTB and Lamborghini Huracán go wheel to wheel across a field of nine manufacturers, and it supplies the LMP2 class exclusively at Le Mans and throughout the European Le Mans Series. British fans will know the badge well, because since 2020 Goodyear has been the sole tyre supplier to every team in the BTCC, the country's biggest and most hotly fought series. None of this is vanity racing, either — endurance competition gives the brand an irreplaceable testing ground for developing its next generation of performance road tyres.

Image credit: Goodyear

Leading the Charge Into Electric Racing 

Goodyear is also racing into territory most brands are still only talking about. It sits at the leading edge of the world's first all-electric, multi-brand touring car championship, helping to shape the direction of electric motorsport. Fully electric and producing 680 bhp, these cars deliver savage acceleration — and harnessing the instant torque of an electric powertrain demands a fresh approach to tyre engineering, a challenge shared by many high-performance road-going EVs. 

From the Circuit to Your Driveway 

For all the glamour of the grid, the real payoff arrives at home. Goodyear channels its global racing experience and road expertise into a new breed of performance tyre: The Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 6. 

Featuring technologies like Dry Contact Plus, a contact patch that adapts to driving style and road surface, and Wet Braking Pro, a new resin that increases micro-contact between tyre and road, these are the direct product of decades of combined circuit and road know-how. 

Fast Is In Us: The Latest Chapter 

That heritage now anchors the brand's newest push. In May 2026 Goodyear launched Fast Is In Us, a global campaign celebrating its Eagle performance tyre family, one of the most recognised names in performance driving. Eagle carries more than four decades of racing credibility — 45 years, millions of drivers, and award-winning products including the Eagle F1 Asymmetric 6, Eagle F1 SuperSport and Eagle F1 SuperSport R. 

The campaign even debuted at the Kentucky Derby, with the Goodyear Blimp drifting overhead asking, "Did someone say horsepower?", before rolling on into motorsport's marquee moments such as the 24 Hours of Le Mans. As chief executive Mark Stewart framed it, Eagle has built decades of credibility in performance and racing, and the brand wants it recognised once more as the tyre knowledgeable drivers turn to when performance truly counts. 

The Bottom Line 

So, why is Goodyear still the name to beat? Le Mans, Formula One, NASCAR, the moon, and now the front line of electric racing make a fairly convincing argument — and every one of those laps is folded into the tyres you can fit today. Fast, as Goodyear likes to put it, was never something it switched on. It's simply how the brand was built.

Browse the full Goodyear range at Blackcircles.com today.

Hero image credit: Goodyear