The invention concerns a tire damage detection method that includes a tire damage detection step comprising: providing an acquisition device (11), which is installed on board a motor vehicle (2) equipped with two or more wheels fitted with tires, and which is coupled to a vehicle bus (20) of the motor vehicle (2), and a processing device / system (12,12A,12B) storing a predefined tire damage model; acquiring, by the acquisition device (11) from the vehicle bus (20), signals indicative of speeds of the motor vehicle (2) and of a wheel of said motor vehicle (2); outputting, by the acquisition device (11), quantities indicative of the speeds of the motor vehicle (2) and of the wheel thereof; receiving, by the processing device / system (12,12A,12B) from the acquisition device (11), the quantities indicative of the speeds of the motor vehicle (2) and of the wheel of said motor vehicle (2); computing, by the processing device / system (12,12A,12B), based on the quantities indicative of the speeds of the motor vehicle (2) and of the wheel of said motor vehicle (2), a normalized wheel speed indicative of a ratio of the wheel speed to the motor vehicle speed; and detecting, by the processing device / system (12,12A,12B), a potential damage to a tire of the wheel of the motor vehicle (2) based on the predefined tire damage model and on the normalized wheel speed. In particular, the tire damage detection method according to the present invention includes also a preliminary step that comprises: performing tests involving test tire impacts against / on different obstacles at different motor vehicle speeds; measuring / acquiring test-related wheel and motor vehicle speeds during the performed tests; computing test-related normalized wheel speeds based on the test-related wheel and motor vehicle speeds; and determining the predefined tire damage model to be used by the processing device / system (12,12A,12B) in the tire damage detection step on the basis of the test-related normalized wheel speeds and the test-related motor vehicle speeds that correspond to the test tire impacts.