The present invention is directed to a pneumatic tire comprising a ground contacting tread, the tread comprising a rubber composition comprising at least one additional diene based rubber; silica; a sulfur donor; a sulfenamide accelerator; and a dithiophosphate of the formula wherein Q is divalent Zn or S, and R3 may be identical or different, and R3 is hydrogen or a monovalent hydrocarbon group of 1 to 18 carbon atoms; wherein the zinc content of the rubber composition is less than 0.5 parts by weight, per 100 parts by weight of elastomer (phr) as Zn meta.