Why Ford believes now is the right time to return to sportscar racing’s top flight

Ford is returning in an attempt to reprise its overall successes at the Le Mans 24 Hours of the 1960s, the famous quadruple of 1966 to 1969. It really should be regarded as big news, but the question has to be why it has taken so long?

Specifically that’s why it will be joining the new golden age of sportscar racing with an LMDh in 2027, year five for that ruleset or the seventh year of the Le Mans Hypercar category. It’s a pertinent question given that the American manufacturer was one of the core group of six manufacturers around the table in the technical working groups that formulated the latter set of regulations.

OPINION: Why Ford’s plans for a new chapter in its Le Mans story make so much sense

Ford’s interest in returning to Le Mans has been clear for some time. It was on the table as early 2018, when a replacement for LMP1 was being conjured up and its campaigns with the Ford GT in both the World Endurance Championship and the IMSA SportsCar Championship were coming to an end. No secret was made of its investigation into top-flight sportscar racing, nor the very serious look it took at Formula E.

There was, says global director of Ford Performance Mark Rushbrook, too much uncertainty for the company to take the plunge at that time. That was a lack of clarity over how the so-called convergence process would play out after the announcement of the LMDh formula as an alternative route into the WEC in January 2020.

It has been largely forgotten that IMSA didn’t commit to LMH cars being able to race in North America for another six months and the means by which it would happen for another year after that. Part of that process involved fully aligning the performance of two sets of racing cars built to a different rulebook, whether in IMSA or the WEC.

Rushbrook points out that the world of sportscar racing was in what he calls a “state of transition”. There was, he explains, no “certainty that we would get convergence”. By that he means full convergence.

“At the point in time we needed to make decisions it didn’t seem right to us,” he says. “So we said we are not going to go in until we are certain that it is right.”

When it did become right, at a time when there was a constant stream of other manufacturers signing up to build LMH and LMDh machinery, Ford had other fish to fry. In January 2022, still a year before the first race for the new breed of LMDh prototypes, Ford announced its Mustang GT3 programme for 2024. That was quickly followed by news that there would be a GT4 version of the seventh generation of its musclecar, as well as the Dark Horse R trackday machine and one-make racer.

“As you could imagine, bringing three new Mustang race cars out in 2024 took a lot of resource during 2022 and ’23, so that was our focus in sportscars,” explains Rushbrook, who describes the Mustang as an “icon”. It is a key part of what the Blue Oval calls its quadrant strategy: the Mustang, which is also represented in Supercars in Australia and NHRA drag racing, is one of the four pillars of its blueprint for motorsport.

Plans for an expansion into the top classes of top-line sportscar racing, Hypercar in WEC and GTP in IMSA, might have stayed on the back-burner but for an important announcement last June. The Automobile Club de l’Ouest and the FIA, which jointly administer the WEC, and IMSA took the opportunity to confirm that the lifecycles of the LMH and LMDh rules would be extended for another two seasons through to the end of 2029. The move opened the door for a new wave of manufacturers to look again at WEC and IMSA, Ford included.

“With the regulations extending two additional years to allow us to race up to 2029 there is still time to get in on these car regulations to develop a Ford LMDh,” says Rushbrook. “It started to make business sense for responsible reasons as a company.”

LMH remained an option, he insists. “Absolutely, it was on the table,” he says, before returning to the topic of those “responsible reasons”.

“On innovation and tech transfer, very candidly, LMH provides a little bit more opportunity because we would be designing our own car and hybrid system,” he explains. “But we believe an efficient return with an LMDh is better for us.” An LMDh, remember, is developed around one of the chassis spines available from four licensed suppliers and uses an off-the-shelf or spec energy-retrieval system.

A further expansion of Ford’s reach in motorsport comes at a time when it is on its way back to Formula 1 as an engine supplier in partnership with Red Bull. That begs the question why it needs to race at the top of sportscar racing when it is trumping that by competing at the very pinnacle of motorsport. Rushbrook describes the LMDh programme as a “halo” that “cements” its commitment to international sportscar racing with the Mustang.

There are emotional reasons, too, ones that were hammed up on the announcement of its LMDh programme at the end of January. Its launch statement played heavily on those four Le Mans outright victories with the Ford MkII, MkIV and GT40 more than half a century ago. And that it vanquished Ferrari to do so.

Ford felt an emotional pull towards another outright Le Mans victory attempt after its 1960s success

Photo by: Motorsport Images

“There is a lot of emotion there through the Ford family, the Ford leadership team, and through our entire employee base,” says Rushbrook. “It is a point of pride for us competing in motorsport in different places, but especially Le Mans.”

On whether those “different places” will include the LMDh ending up in IMSA in 2027 or perhaps the year after remains to be seen. It was one of the key details missing from the Ford launch announcement.

The comments from Rushbrook regarding Ford’s concerns about the LMH-LMDh convergence process would suggest that an IMSA campaign is very much part of the plan for its forthcoming prototype. But so far Ford is playing down any intent to compete for overall glory in North America, a playground in which it has more recent history than at world championship level. Think the Mustang and Probe GTP programmes of the 1980s and the Ford EcoBoost Daytona Prototype engine programme at the start of the 2010s.

“All we have announced is that we are racing in WEC from 2027 and I wouldn’t assume anything beyond that,” is all Rushbrook will say on the matter.

Ford is also not telling the world which chassis partner it has chosen, though Rushbrook confirms that the decision has been made. The smart money, however, is on ORECA, which has already partnered with Acura, Alpine and Genesis on their respective LMDh programmes.

The final decisions on the internal combustion component of the hybrid powertrain are in the process of being taken, he reveals. The engine, whatever its configuration is to be, will be designed and developed in house by Ford in Detroit.

One thing that Rushbrook can tell us is Ford has an unequivocal commitment to sportscar racing. And that includes racing right at the top of the tree: it is back and back for the long haul, he insists.

“All we can commit to at this point is through ’29 because that is what the regulations are good for,” he says. “We will see what happens with those regulations, but I don’t see a major departure from where they are today [in 2030]. I think it will end up as a longer-term commitment. All that you see us doing in motorsport is with a long-term vision and commitment.”