With 61 horsepower more than the car it replaced, the latest Porsche 911 Turbo S is the most powerful factory 911 ever built. The twin-turbo hybrid sports car is also nearly 200 pounds heavier than the previous car. How did Porsche manage to give it the traction and cornering ability to master that newfound power and weight and still feel like a Porsche? With some help from its Italian friends at Pirelli, in the form of a new tire. New Tire Developed Just For The Turbo S Porsche The newest addition to the Pirelli P Zero R lineup was developed along with Porsche, letting it meet both the criteria of the tire company and those of Porsche's engineers and development drivers. That partnership results in the 911 Turbo S getting a specific N marking on the sidewall, the sign of an approved Porsche tire for a few decades now.Co-developing tires has become very common on high-performance cars, and it even extends to the tires on more normal cars. Especially as automakers need to find increased efficiencies each year. Pirelli says the P Zero R delivers some of that efficiency in the form of optimized rolling resistance. It also delivers less road noise thanks to the tread pattern, but that's not the focus of this tire or this car.The 911 Turbo S is about going fast, giving the driver loads of feel, and handling that is just on the comfort side of a GT3. That's what this tire is really made for, with Pirelli making sure it's up to the 701 hp and 590 pound-feet of the 3.6-liter flat-six. Pirelli has tuned the tire to deliver optimal grip when it's dry. But Porsche knows you're likely to drive this car when it's not sunny, too, so the tire works in wet conditions as well.The new tire is also a larger tire, at least on the rear axle. Porsche upgraded from 315 width to 325 this time around, making the rear tires 325/30R21. The front axle is the same as the last Turbo S, with 255/35R20 tires. They're smaller because the rear-engine Porsche puts so much more weight on the rear axle, and this keeps the balance Porsche wants. Not Every Car Gets One Single Tire Porsche Porsche is only showing the Turbo S with this new Pirelli tire, but that's not always the case. Last year, it announced that the GT3 RS would have an optional Michelin tire designed for better performance in the wet or cool weather, while Pirelli had a P Zero R for daily driving or a Trofeo RS semi-slick for track days.Other models can have multiple factory tire options. Take a look through forums and groups, and you'll find some new owners are very unhappy that their new 718 GT4 or 911 came with the "wrong" tires. It's a bit silly, but also a little understandable on cars with price tags more befitting a house.How much of a difference does a tire really make? Porsche claimed its wet weather Michelin was worth more than 10 seconds on a 1.7-mile test track. In 2019, it said that a change in tires was worth six seconds towards the 911 GT3 RS breaking into the six-minute range at the Nürburgring. That was the difference between being above seven minutes or below."A Porsche is a high-performance vehicle. With the right tires, our customers can feel the perfect performance even better," Porsche test driver Timo Kluck said at the time. He had been a test driver for the company for 18 years at that point, so he knew what he's talking about.