Ford preparing for Le Mans GT swansong
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Marshall Pruett | March 1, 2019 11:10 AM
The anticipated end to Ford’s four-year commitment to its GT program at Le Mans is coming in June, and with all four of its factory entries, plus the privateer GT owned by Ben Keating, finally confirmed on the entry list, Ford Performance boss Mark Rushbrook expressed his appreciation to the event’s organizers.
“We’d like to thank the ACO for allowing us four GTE-Pro entries for the Le Mans 24 Hours this year,” he said. “The factory Ford GTs have competed as a four-car team the past three seasons, and we believe they have been extremely popular with the fans, so we are thrilled that sports cars fans around the world will get to see them all run together as a team one more year.”
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Rushbrook’s comments come after weeks of speculation regarding the full entry list for the 87th running of the French endurance classic. Based on the initial entry list revealed in February, only the two Ford Chip Ganassi Racing FIA World Endurance Championship entries were confirmed; with today’s finalized list, both of Ford’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTs were added to the GTE-Pro invitations.
“It’s an honor to race at Le Mans, and it’s an honor we don’t take for granted,” added Rushbrook, whose four factory entries are expected to feature some form of retro livery. “We can’t wait to get there this year with some special things planned, as well as having our first customer team on the grid with us. It’s going to be a very special race.”
Ford has yet to confirm its sports car racing plans after its GT programs in the FIA WEC and IMSA’s WeatherTech Championship conclude. Despite the lack of an official position on the subject, an IMSA DPi project utilizing the same 3.5-liter twin-turbo V6 powerplant found in the road and racing versions of the GT, fitted to a Riley/Multimatic Mk. 30 chassis, has been in development for quite some time.
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