While the racing world waits on pins and needles for the first glimpse of Ford Racing’s new prototype sports car, America’s Race Team (with new and familiar partners in Australia) has announced today that it will enter the Suzuka 1000km on 11–13 September, marking the Ford Mustang GT3’s debut in Japan’s oldest endurance sports car race.
Representing Ford in this fourth round of the 2026 Intercontinental GT Challenge is a brand new joint entry from Miedecke Motorsport and Melbourne Performance Centre (MPC). Competing as “Miedecke Motorsport by Team MPC,” they’ll field a Mustang GT3 in Ford Racing factory colours, with a very familiar line-up of works drivers.
They are the three drivers who gave the Mustang GT3 its first-ever victory in global competition: Christopher Mies, Dennis Olsen, and Frédéric Vervisch teamed up to win the 2025 Rolex 24 At Daytona, and will reunite this year after spending time on opposite sides of the Ford Racing garage this season in IMSA.
All three drivers have raced in the Suzuka Summer Endurance race previously: Vervisch won overall in 2019 for Audi Sport Team WRT, Olsen finished third for Absolute Racing, also in 2019 – meanwhile Mies was fourth in 2018, and seventh in 2019 for WRT and Absolute respectively.
This new venture also marks a new chapter for MPC, long-time Audi customers who will represent the famous ‘Blue Oval’ for the very first time.
MPC has won nine Australian GT/GT World Challenge Australia overall titles over the last 15 years, including last year’s championship, won by Brad Schumacher and Australian Supercars standout Broc Feeney (whose commitments to the Supercars Championship prevented him from racing at Suzuka).
Miedecke Motorsport, meanwhile, has raced the latest-generation Ford Mustang GT4 in the GT4 Australia series, and also handles imports, distribution, and parts supply for the Mustang GT4 and the Mustang Dark Horse R used in the new Mustang Challenge Australia series.
Both organisations operate out of the same workshop in Bayswater, Victoria.
“The continued development of the Ford Mustang GT3 has been proven in endurance classics like Le Mans, Daytona, Nürburgring, and Bathurst. Competing full-time in this year’s Intercontinental GT Challenge — including its debut at the Suzuka 1000km — allows us to continue to prove the Mustang on the global stage and against elite competition,” said Alex Allmandinger, Sports Car Motorsports Programme Manager of Ford Racing.
Andrew Miedecke, CEO of Miedecke Motorsport, added: “This is a fantastic opportunity for an all-Australian effort to compete in one of the world’s great sports car races. It’s been great to grow our partnership with Team MPC this year. We share space at their Melbourne workshop and with our links to Ford Racing, this partnership was the perfect fit. We all feel very grateful to be entrusted by Ford to field their official factory entry at Suzuka. The line-up of drivers is terrific too. Ford goes racing to win, and that’s our intention.”
And Troy Russell, Director at MPC, commented: “This is an exciting project for our team and we are really looking forward to heading to Japan to represent Ford at the Suzuka 1000km. We’ve worked closely with Miedecke Motorsport this year, and this deal is an extension of the partnership that has worked really well. This is one of the world’s most revered sports car races, and we feel that we have all the right ingredients to give it a real shake. Chris (Mies) and Frédéric (Vervisch) have raced with our team in the past, so we know we have a great roster of drivers and we really can’t wait to get over there.”
It will also be a rare opportunity for the fans in Japan to see the Ford Mustang in action. Ford withdrew from the Japanese automobile market at the end of 2016, and outside of Proton Competition’s regular stops at the WEC 6 Hours of Fuji, the only other Mustang currently racing in Japan is a lone Mustang Dark Horse R which races in the ENEOS Super Taikyu Series.
But the brand has raced at the Suzuka 1000km before: Notably in 1993 when Les Lindley’s IMSA-spec Ford Mustang GTO finished fourth overall, and most recently as 2007 when Team DHG’s infamous Ford GT – powered by a 3.5-litre V8 engine based on one of Mugen’s old Formula Nippon engines – finished ninth in the GT300 class!
The provisional entry list for the 50th Suzuka 1000km will be released on Thursday.
Images © Ford Racing, Jack Webster/dailysportscar.com, GTA
