After a development period in Formula 1 with the all-American Scarab team, we set up a European racing base and partnered both the Brabham and Honda F1 teams in 1965. Richie Ginther put our name in the F1 record books in that same year as the company’s first Le Mans win.

“They were always able to come up with something new. They always had several compounds to try and a fantastic effort to make sure we had the best we could possibly have.”

Jack Brabham

The following season, teammate Denny Hulme repeated the feat and we had become firmly established as the tyre to beat.

Three tyre manufacturers vied for honours in the period that followed, making tyre development as key to success as engine and chassis technology. F1 engineers discovered a magic formula called downforce. Aerospace innovations thrust F1 pace forward, including the upturned wings that forced a car’s tyres into the ground, massively improving cornering grip. The forces were unlike anything a car tyre manufacturer had experienced before, but we moved up a gear to respond. Slicks replaced treaded tyres and the contact patch now matched the downforce levels.

In 1971 and 1973, Jackie Stewart and Tyrrell worked closely with us to dominate in this fearsome era. Stewart retired at the end of 1973 but continue to collaborate with us to develop road tyres for many years after.

From 1973 to 1977, in a period of open tyre competition, every Grand Prix was won on Goodyear. Emerson Fittipaldi, Niki Lauda and James Hunt joined Goodyear’s world championship winners’ hall of fame.

At the end of the decade, big wings were replaced by ground effect. The ever-innovative Lotus team found a way of sealing the gap between the floor of the car and the track with skirts, with the vacuum effect sucking the car to the ground. G-forces went up, but we raised their game again. New constructions helped ground effect cars such as the Lotus 79 dominate, helping Mario Andretti become Formula 1 World Champion.

Into the 1980s, the Williams team emerged to challenge the grandees of F1. Alan Jones and Keke Rosberg took the team to world championships on our tyres, before the governing body changed the rules to ban ground effects. This shifted the focus to engine power, rather than aerodynamics and a brief but fabulous era of 1000bhp+ turbo cars put new demands on tyre companies in the mid-eighties. Nelson Piquet, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna were Goodyear’s turbo titans, using the latest generation Goodyear race tyres to win in an era of searing power, open tyre competition and bitter driver rivalries.

By 1989, turbos had been banned. A new era of screaming V10 and V12 engines arrived with less torque but higher revs. Prost and Senna’s rivalry hit its peak. The two drivers had little in common, but both relied on Goodyear.

Active suspension helped optimise the aerodynamics, raising grip levels and putting incredible forces through tyres. Senna, Prost and Nigel Mansell dominated but the tragic loss of the Brazilian three-time world champion also coincided with the arrival of a new challenge.

Refuelling in races was allowed again, and teams realised the fastest way to complete 200 miles was to stop two or three times. The lighter fuel load meant softer and stickier tyres could be used and each race became a series of flat-out qualifying laps. Michael Schumacher was the master of this era, taking his first two championships in a Goodyear-shod Benetton before the all-conquering Williams team wrapped up the tyre company’s three decades of F1 domination with titles for Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve.