The final confirmation of Ford’s dual IMSA and WEC programs the day before the 24 Hours of Le Mans was a highlight of the event, and with a pair of two-car efforts to establish, Ford partners Chip Ganassi Racing, Multimatic, and Roush Yates Engines have plenty of work to do in the months ahead.
CGR managing director Mike Hull walked Marshall Pruett through a timeline that will cover the program’s immediate post-Le Mans activities and the major milestones on the 2015 calendar, starting with testing the twin-turbo V6 EcoBoost-powered supercar:
“For us it’s pretty controlled on the calendar in terms of what’s going to happen,” he said. “The car that was displayed at Le Mans had been run prior to a shakedown run prior to the introduction of the car to the public. That car is back in North America now and it’s going to start a test program. There will be a test program that starts with it pretty directly the next 60 days, and that will be with Multimatic going to run that car primarily at their test track at Calabogie in Canada.”
CGR’s Tudor United SportsCar Championship team will shadow Multimatic during testing and begin their own testing program once the Indianapolis-based team takes delivery of their first chassis.
“Our drivers, our crew members, Mike O’Gara, our sports car team manager, and our engineering staff will interact with that testing while Multimatic throughout the testing process in Canada,” Hull (LEFT) continued. “And Multimatic are already well down the road building our first car. Our first car will be delivered to us if everything goes right, they’ve met all the schedules so far, which has been really good, been impressive, probably around Labor Day. September 1.
“Our intention is to begin testing that first car in September, October, and November. So for 90 days we have a bit of an ambitious testing program going on. It will be a combination of Daytona, Sebring and COTA. And maybe NOLA. We like NOLA as a test track based on our experience there with Indy cars.”
The championship-winning Indy car and sports car outfit will spend the summer recruiting staff for the factory GT Le Mans assault in 2016, and pushing the Ford GT platform as hard as possible to expose and rectify any weaknesses.
“That testing will be segmented into competition testing, getting the car to work, and also durability testing,” Hull explained.
“We want to get the durability side well underway early on. It will be doing more longer distance running instead of shorter distances we’re going to have a lot of endurance racing in the front end of the season. We’ll engage in that pretty seriously.
“And we’re in the process of the retention of additional crew members that will work on the program while the IMSA team is finishing up their season through Petit so that we’ll be well manned with the test part of the program. The goal is to have everybody in place right way when the car hits the ground for us.”
With CGR handling all aspect of Ford’s racing endeavors with the GT, including running its IMSA program, Multimatic has been tasked with fielding the WEC program on behalf of Ganassi. According to Hull, the Canadian firm will administer the GT’s first official outing in September when the car is presented for ACO/FIA Balance of Performance testing in France.
“We’ll have a car there and it’ll be part of the process as we’re getting ready here,” he said. “We’re planning on doing it with them looking after the process with us, because we’re partners with Multimatic all the way through.”
Rumors of Ford bringing one or two of the Michelin-shod GTs to race at IMSA’s season finale at Petit Le Mans have circulated for a while, but Hull says competing prior to the Rolex 24 at Daytona in January is unlikely.
“I think with the delivery schedule and everything we’re trying to accomplish, that probably will not happen,” he noted. “I don’t think we’ll surprise anybody the last minute by us saying that it will happen. I think with everything that’s on our plate, our focus is to be ready the right way to go racing next year, and we’ll concentrate on being ready with long-distance running and short distance spurts while we work with Multimatic and Ford to get the thing right. That, for us, is going to be a big deal.”
Marshall Pruett
