MOTORSPORT: Race debut for new Ford GT this weekend

Ford’s new supercar for its return to Le Mans in the 50th year since its first historic victory there takes to the track this weekend against competition for the first time – and with Australian Ryan Briscoe at the wheel.

The GT with a 3.5-litre Ecoboost V6 engine already has been tested privately in the United States, but now two of the sleek machines will be among 54 cars on track at the 5.7km Daytona road course in Florida.

The ‘Roar before the 24’ is a three-day test for cars competing in the Daytona 24-Hour – America’s premier sports car race – at the end of this month.

That will be the first round of the US Sports Car Championship in which iconic team owner Chip Ganassi will field the two GT cars, as well as two Ford-engined Riley prototypes defending the team’s 2015 outright victory.

Two other Ford GTs will contest the entire World Endurance Championship (WEC), run by the British-based Multimatic team headed by George Howard-Chappell who was previously associated with Prodrive and Aston Martin Racing.

In the US the cars will run in the GTLM class, which in the WEC is called GTE – with the E standing for endurance.

Ford hopes the Le Mans 24-Hour organisers will invite all four GTs to race in that French classic in June.

WEC chief executive Gerard Neveu said this week that Ford was “a huge part” of endurance racing history there along with Ferrari, Porsche and Aston Martin.

It was in 1966 that the fabulous Ford GT40 run by Carroll Shelby became legend, toppling long-dominant Ferrari for outright honours – with the victorious drivers being New Zealanders Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon.

Ford’s new international racing campaign comes after its withdrawal from Australia’s V8 Supercar Championship – and Falcon driver Mark Winterbottom’s title – last season.

American-based Australian Briscoe was lured away from Chevrolet’s Corvette GT squad to join the new Ford attack this year.

Corvette won’t be at Le Mans, opting to contain its racing activity this year to North America.

Briscoe’s co-drivers at Daytona will be Briton Richard Westbrook and German Stefan Mucke. In the other entry will be Frenchman Sebastien Bourdais, like Briscoe best-known as an IndyCar driver, American Joey Hand, who starred in a Ford V8 Supercar at the 2011 Gold Coast 600, and German Dirk Muller.

Five New Zealanders are in the Daytona field – IndyCar champion Scott Dixon and  Aussie Mark Webber’s WEC world champion teammate Brendon Hartley in Ganassi’s prototypes, 2015 Le Mans winner Earl Bamber in a Porsche 911 RSR, V8 Supercar star Shane Van Gisbergen in a Porsche 991 GT3 R and Richie Stanaway in an Aston Martin Vantage GT3.

Among the field also are European ex-V8 Supercar racers Alex Premat (Ferrari 488 GTE) and Maro Engel (ORECA-Chevrolet).

Ganassi said the new Fords were “taking it (GT racing) up a level … purpose-built cars”.

“Instead of taking a road car and making it into a WEC car, [Ford’s philosophy has been] let’s build a WEC car and make it into an extreme road car,” Ganassi said.

“What we are seeing is the result of the wake of the financial crisis of 2008.

“Manufacturers are now of a mindset that they want to race cars that they sell.

“They want to race their top-line cars with their top-line tech.

“That’s why you see such a strong GT class right around the world.

“I’m an open-wheel (IndyCar) and NASCAR and prototype guy, and I certainly don’t want to see those formulas go away, but you can’t deny the fact that there’s a manufacturer war going on in GT!”

Dave Pericak, who was the chief engineer on the Blue Oval’s new Mustang and now heads Ford Performance, said the GT race program was part of the company’s goal “to reclaim our heritage in performance vehicles”.

“This is not an evolution, it’s a revolution,” Pericak said.

“It does build off the history, but this is a futuristic machine in every regard … a whole new chapter, to reset what a supercar is.

“A lot of people have asked why we haven’t tried to go for the overall win [in the top-tier prototype class].

“At the end of the day this car is all about relevance. We believe this class is more relevant right now to the cars that we are going to sell, not only the road version of this car but directly to the rest of the Ford line-up.

“The fact that this new GT is such a visual game-changer, not just for us but for the GTE class as a whole, will be great for the visibility of the whole class, I’m certain.

“We’ll be building 250 cars per year (as required by Le Mans regulations, although Ford may get special dispensation if it comes in under that number this year}.

“It is not about Ford coming and going [in international racing].

“The commitment we have [from Ford’s top management] says that we’ll be doing things like this for a long time.

“This is the future of the company.

“We’re going to continually find improvements in aerodynamics, in fuel efficiency and everything else.

“By using programs like this to push the technological barriers, using the state-of-the-art simulator we have in [NASCAR ‘capital’] Charlotte right now, that is now being used for road car development, something we wouldn’t have seen until very recently, that’s a race program bringing real advantages to better, and faster, development of cars for the road.

“People have said to me; ‘Why aren’t you doing what GM are doing with the Corvette and just racing in North America?’

“We’re a global company with a global product and we want to use these programs to help strengthen our brand globally.”