The phrase “racing improves the breed” might sound no more than a catchy idiom for fans to justify the sport, but it’s true that the stresses of competition results in the kind of pressure chamber that accelerates development and forges a better product – one that ultimately leads to you driving a better road car.

Against that backdrop, Michelin has been working on ways to make its tyres out of more sustainable materials, and what better way to stress test these methods than in the crucible of motorsports? That’s why Michelin is partnering with Porsche (and its electrified future racing programmes) to speed up the development of this new technology, which has real-world benefits for production car tyres.

And to demonstrate this tie up, the latest version of Michelin’s racing tyres – made with 53% sustainable materials – were fitted to the new Porsche 718 GT4 ePerformance concept car for demo runs at the 2022 Goodwood Festival of Speed. The sustainable raw materials that went into these tires range from natural rubber and carbon black recycled from end-of-life tires, to orange and lemon peel, pine-tree resin, sunflower oil and scrap steel. In keeping with its Michelin In Motion policy, Michelin plans to make all its tires exclusively from sustainable materials by 2050.

This new tyre moves the game on from the one Michelin brought to 2021’s running of the Le Mans 24h race, which was trialed by the H24 GreenGT hydrogen racing prototype (below) under full race conditions, and which contained 46% sustainable materials.