All the horsepower in the world doesn’t mean dollar-one if you shod the wheels in crummy rubber. With sports cars like the Ford Mustang GT now putting out well north of 400 horsepower, grippy tires that can also perform in day-to-day driving are more important than ever. The Blue Oval is now making official its partnership with Michelin Tires, which going forward will be the exclusive supplier of tires for all Ford Performance vehicles.

“We have a long relationship with Michelin, and could not ask for a better teammate to help extract maximum capability from our vehicles,” said Dave Pericak, director, Ford Performance. “That confidence extends from our upcoming racing effort at Le Mans in 2016 with the all-new Ford GT, to the Ford Performance vehicle lineup, including Shelby GT350 and F-150 Raptor.”

All across the board, Ford’s performance vehicles will be shod in Michelin rubber. For the Fiesta ST and Focus ST, that means Pilot series performance tires. The Shelby GT350 and Focus RS both get Pilot Super Sport tires going forward, while the Ford GT and Shelby GT350R will come wearing Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires. The 2017 Ford Raptor will utilize BF Goodrich (a Michelin subsidiary) All-Terrain T/A KO2 tires. The deal also includes tires for Ford’s motorsports ventures, and we expect to see the Ford GT Le Mans racer zipping around on Michelin rubber. Michelin will also become more involved in the vehicle development process, suggesting an even deeper relationship between the two automakers.

One notable absence from this deal is the Mustang GT, the first car anybody thinks of when it comes to Ford performance cars. Ford signed a deal with Pirelli in late 2014 that makes them the exclusive original equipment tire supplier for all 2015 Mustang models, but apparently not the Shelby models. We don’t know how long the Pirelli/Mustang deal is for, though Ford has been partnered with Pirelli since 2005.