Ford Ranger Raptor to take on Finke Desert Race

Ford Australia appears ready to enter the new Ford Ranger Raptor in the gruelling Finke Desert Race in 2023.

While the company is yet to confirm its entry to one of the world’s toughest off-road events, saying only that Supercars racing remains its motorsport priority, carsales understands preparations are already underway to showcase the new Raptor’s considerable high-speed off-road capabilities in next year’s Finke.

Speaking with carsales’ The Showroom podcast, which you can listen to in full from mid-September, Ford Ranger Raptor program lead Justin Capicchiano said the second-generation Raptor was essentially engineered to take on desert races like Finke and the Baja 1000 in standard trim.

All that would be required was safety gear including a roll cage, said the Raptor program chief.

“Off-road racing is something we’re really interested in,” said Capicchiano.

“I haven’t got anything [more] to say today, but it’s a matter of finding the right [promotional] experience for the truck.

“The right program and the right timing. But once we’ve found those things we’ll have more to say.”

The new Aussie-developed Ford Ranger Raptor packs a 3.0-litre twin-turbo petrol V6 that basically doubles the power output and acceleration time of its lauded four-year-old predecessor.

To go with it, Ford’s engineers have also upped the chassis capabilities, with adaptive Fox shocks a key new feature.

“If you look at it and say ‘what is the truck capable of?’, we know because we’ve done the testing,” Capicchiano said.

“We’ve done the equivalent of the Baja 1000 in Alice Springs and we’ve correlated that to the surface in California where Ford Performance signs off on all the other programs.

“We know what it’s capable of and would I like to see customers racing it in the desert? Well yeah.

“We’ve built a really strong foundation truck to be able to do that. If I think about Finke and I think about the production class at Finke, it has been won for the past seven years by a Mitsubishi Pajero. Now this is a Pajero with $200,000 worth of modifications, but the Raptor has nearly 150 more horsepower than that.

“Does it make for a compelling vehicle to go do that in? I think so.”

Asked whether Ford Performance would throw money behind a factory-backed race truck or a customer factory race kit, Capicchiano said all options were on the table.

We understand that existing parties affiliated with Ford’s Supercars program are already being engaged in a factory-style effort to take on Finke in the new Raptor.

However, Ford officials including Australian chief Andrew Birkic remain tight-lipped on the matter.

“We haven’t really explored it too deeply yet. You want to make sure that whatever you’re going to do works in conjunction with what we’ve already done,” Capicchiano said.

“Production racing is probably a good starting point because you can look at what we’ve got and say the foundation starting elements are all there and then try and do things like roll cages, racing seats, harnesses and all that stuff.”

So you can expect Ford to take on the production class at Finke with a near-standard Raptor, rather than a highly modified rolling test lab for any potential Raptor R.

For the full interview with Capicchiano, stay tuned for carsales’ new podcast, The Showroom, in mid-September.

Until then, keep an eye out for our first full review of the new Ford Ranger Raptor next week, on September 8.

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