Ford is set to bid for its first outright Le Mans 24 Hours victory in 58 years with a new hypercar powered by a 5.4-litre ‘Coyote’ V8 engine. The engine is the same one used in its Mustang GT3 racer.
This gives Ford a chance to win at Le Mans for the first time since it claimed four straight victories from 1966 to 1969 with the GT40. The new hypercar will compete in the FIA World Endurance Championship, which Ford announced it would enter last year.
The car is currently undergoing wind tunnel development ahead of an on-track debut in the second half of this year.
Powertrain and Chassis
Under LMDh rules, manufacturers must use a chassis provided by one of four companies, and Ford has selected French function Object() { [native code] } Oreca. A spec hybrid system is employed, but manufacturers can use their own combustion engines.
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System output is capped at 671bhp and all cars are rear-wheel-drive. Ford has chosen to use the naturally aspirated 5.4-litre engine from its existing Mustang GT3, which is based on the V8 used in the road-going Mustang.
Dan Sayers, Ford Racing’s hypercar boss, said that “when you have an engine this iconic in your arsenal, you don’t look for alternatives”.
Engine Development
The V8 engine is being developed entirely in-house, by a team combining engineers at Ford headquarters in Michigan with input from those from the new Red Bull Ford Powertrains Formula 1 project. Sayers added that “you lean into your DNA” and described the V8 as a “bridge between the legends of 1966 and the future of 2027”.
All four of the GT40s that won Le Mans in the 1960s featured a V8 engine. They used a 7.0-litre unit in 1966 and 1967, before rule changes meant a switch to a 4.9-litre unit for their wins in 1968 and 1969.
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Driver Lineup
Ford has confirmed three drivers who will compete for the team in the WEC next year: Sebastian Priaulx, Mike Rockenfeller, and Logan Sargeant. Priaulx and Rockenfeller will move up from racing a Mustang GT3 in the US-based IMSA Sportscar Championship last year, while Sargeant previously drove in F1 for Williams.
Priaulx and Rockenfeller will compete in a Ford-run Oreca LMP2 prototype in the European Le Mans Series this year. They will take “the building blocks of this programme and stress-test them under the most demanding conditions on the planet”.
Ford’s hypercar programme will be its first in the top class at Le Mans since the disastrous Group C C100 project, which was launched in 1981 but canned at the end of the following year due to poor results.