Winter tires

Hankook Ventus S1 evo Z becomes Porsche 911 Carrera factory fitment in 19/20-inch sizes

Jiri Zelinka Author Jiri Zelinka
2 min read

Hankook’s Ventus S1 evo Z is now an original-equipment tyre for the Porsche 911 Carrera, marking the first time a series-production 911 Carrera leaves the factory on Hankook tyres. The Porsche-approved version carries the “NA2” marking on its sidewall and uses different tyre sizes on the two axles.

Hankook test driver Aleix Alcaraz beside a Porsche 911 during Ventus S1 evo Z development
Photo: Hankook

Staggered sizes and Porsche-specific development

The fitment comprises 235/40 ZR19 tyres for the front axle and 295/35 ZR20 tyres for the rear axle. According to Hankook’s press release, both sizes were developed specifically around the rear-engined, rear-wheel-drive Carrera’s handling requirements rather than simply adapted from the standard replacement-market range.

PositionTyre sizeApproval marking
Front axle235/40 ZR19NA2
Rear axle295/35 ZR20NA2
Source: Hankook press release

Hankook says its engineers created separate front- and rear-axle tread geometries, along with a dedicated compound using resins and silica. The development targets were not published as lap times or braking distances, so the claimed gains in steering precision, high-speed stability and wet grip cannot be quantified from the release.

Testing across several proving grounds

The tyre programme covered four handling areas, with a central objective of balancing dry lane-change performance and wet handling. Hankook conducted testing at Papenburg in Germany and IDIADA near Barcelona for lane-change and general handling, used Nardò in southern Italy for high-speed dry testing, and focused on wet handling characteristics at Pferdsfeld and other tracks.

Hankook Ventus S1 evo Z tyres for the Porsche 911 Carrera at a test track
Photo: Hankook

Test driver Aleix Alcaraz said the project had to balance track performance with everyday usability. Hankook also worked with Porsche on vehicle-dynamics tuning over several years. The announcement follows roughly a decade of Hankook supplying original-equipment tyres to Porsche and extends the brand’s presence among performance-car fitments. It also comes alongside other recent OE work, including a Ventus evo SUV fitment for the Volkswagen Tayron.

What the NA2 marking means for owners

For drivers, the relevant detail is the NA2 sidewall code: it identifies the version developed and approved for this Porsche application. That vehicle-specific tuning is the main consumer value of an OE-homologated tyre in this case. Owners replacing the factory tyres should therefore check the full size and approval marking rather than assuming every Ventus S1 evo Z in a matching nominal size has the same specification.

Hankook has not disclosed pricing or named individual markets in the release. The announcement concerns factory fitment on the Porsche 911 Carrera; it does not state that the NA2 versions will be offered for every 911 derivative or wheel package.