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Ford unveils the Mustang GT3 at Le Mans

Against the backdrop of the world’s most famous endurance race, Ford Performance today fully unveiled the highly anticipated Mustang GT3 a year from the company’s return to the 24 Hours of Le Mans. “Ford and Le Mans are bound together by history,” …

“Ford and Le Mans are bound together by history,” said Ford Motor Company CEO Jim Farley. “And now we’re coming back to the most dramatic, most rewarding and most important race in the world. It is not Ford versus Ferrari anymore. It is Ford versus everyone. Going back to Le Mans is the beginning of building a global motorsports business with Mustang, just like we are doing with Bronco and Raptor off-road.”

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While Ford is eager to repeat past success at Le Mans, experienced most recently in 2016 with the GT but going back to its string of victories in the late ’60s with the GT40, it’s the convergence of sports car GT racing under the GT3 platform in 2024 — where GT3 cars can compete at Le Mans and in the World Endurance Championship, the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, SRO’s GT World Challenge series around the world and numerous other championships and races — that has driven Ford to jump into the ever-growing GT3 pool.

“It has come about for a lot of different reasons,” explained Mark Rushbrook, Global Director at Ford Performance Motorsports, ahead of the unveiling. “Part of it is internal to our company, and the way that we’re able to value motorsports in new and different ways than before. But also, it’s a lot of what’s happened in the racing world, especially in sports car racing. And with the convergence of the GT classes, we can with one car, one designed and one homologated car, race it globally.

“In factory racing, in IMSA, where it’s appropriate to do it, but around the rest of the world — in series like WEC, including Le Mans, SRO — we can race in true customer racing, getting Mustangs out there for customer teams to compete with. That is great for us, because Mustang is one of our icons. It is a halo for us in many ways. And as we’ve committed to the seventh-generation Mustang for the for the road with a full lineup of vehicles, we’re doing the same thing on the racetrack.”

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Based on the Mustang Dark Horse, the performance pinnacle of the 2024 Mustang lineup, the Mustang GT3 has been developed in conjunction with Multimatic, which will run the car in IMSA GTD PRO competition while Proton Competition campaigns the car in WEC. Development of the 5.4-liter Coyote V8 engine has been carried out by M-Sport, Ford’s partner in the World Rally Championship. The Mustang GT3 features revised engine placement, a bespoke short-long arm suspension, a rear-mounted transaxle, carbon fiber body panels, and a unique aero package. One of the standout elements of that aero package is the swan-neck mount for the rear wing that mounts to the car midway between the rear and the roof.

“It’s very good functionally, to tie into some good structure and provide clean airflow. But it’s also very striking from a visual perspective,” Rushbrook, told RACER, adding on to some other technical elements of the car.

“The fender vents, the way the air is channeled to flow — not just over the car and under the car, but through the car to efficiently get the drag and downforce targets that we need to hit, but also the cooling requirements. And then it’s taking that great Coyote naturally aspirated V8 engine, working with M-Sport as a great engine partner to develop that and hit the power targets that we need to be competitive in the class.

“We’re able to get the engine in the race car a little bit lower, a little bit further rearward to give it better inertia characteristics, lower center of gravity, and reduce the yaw inertia as well. So it’s really working with Multimatic as a great vehicle engineering partner to optimize every system, every component in the car for optimum performance on the track.”

The Mustang GT3 was presented in a colorful Troy Lee-designed livery, complete with new Ford Performance branding that will be featured on all the company’s racing vehicles. Rushbrook says that while Ford Performance doesn’t expect teams to copy the livery, they would love for them to take some common elements from it.

In addition to Proton and Multimatic running the car in their respective championships, Ford Performance hopes to see the car in customers’ hands competing across the world, and the company has fielded inquiries from teams wishing to campaign the car in a variety of championships and races. Rushbrook said the intent is to supply as many cars as demand dictates.

Joining the Mustang GT3, which will make its competition debut at the 2024 Rolex 24 At Daytona, the Mustang Dark Horse will also form the basis of a new GT4 car as well as spawn two other track-only versions, the R and S.

Experience, efficiency kickstarting Corvette Z06 GT3.R program

As the GT3 homologation deadline for the 2024 racing season draws near, General Motors and Pratt Miller Engineering are working feverishly to finalize details of the Corvette Z06 GT3.R that will compete, at a minimum, in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and FIA World Endurance Championship next year. Wind tunnel and dyno testing is scheduled to begin in the weeks after Le Mans, and full homologation is expected by October. But there are many things to be discovered before then, and even after.

“It was definitely a benefit that we started our development so early; we were on track last fall,” explains Corvette Z06 GT3.R Program Manager Christie Bagne. “So by the time we hit the end of last year, we already knew the primary aero concept that we’d be moving forward with and things like that. Then we were able to move on very quickly onto things like different damper evaluation. So we’re at the point where we’re working on the fine tuning, and that was definitely enabled by starting that development process last fall.”

The engineering team has been primarily testing on the tire it knows — the same Michelin tire it races on in the WeatherTech Championship. But before and after homologation, they’ll be working to gather as much information as they can on how the car works on different tires so they can have the information for customers racing in different series around the world

“We’re sourcing Goodyear and Pirelli and making sure that that’s worked into our development testing plan as well,” says Bagne. “We want to get well ahead of it in terms of testing different tires, testing different configurations for different series. We’ve developed a great platform with this car, where the current car was developed very much to run on a Michelin tire at IMSA tracks and Le Mans primarily, the GT3 car has been optimized for a wider operating window. So we expect to have quite a bit of success in terms of being able to have the workability to come up with the best possible setups for the different tires, and then provide those learnings to our customer at the onset, so that when they hit the grid with their car, they’ve already benefited from all the testing that we’ve done in advance.”

The priority will be having cars ready for IMSA and WEC competition next season. But while GM wants to have cars for customers to race worldwide, including major GT endurance races such as the 24 Hours of Spa and the 24 Hours of Nurburgring — where Bagne and the key members of the engineering team spent last weekend getting the lay of the land — the aim is not to turn out a huge volume of Z06 GT3.Rs. GM will build at least 20, but it doesn’t plan to churn out hundreds of GT3 cars like some other manufacturers. Because of that, the manufacturer expects to be able to deliver a better customer support experience with their partner PME, Bagne notes.

“We realize that this is our first time launching a proper global customer racing program with the Corvette. So because we’re low volume, and we intend to have the support be a differentiator, the customers will have world-class access to us as the manufacturer representatives, but then also the technical engineering support.

“They’re going to have support at the races, but also in between the races, which arguably matters even more than just having someone firefighting at the races. They’re always going to know exactly who to call — we’re going to be in constant contact with our customers, understanding what their needs are, how we can support them, how we can help them win races … that will be a differentiator. Every individual that’s racing these Corvettes is going to be treated as an individual with individual needs. We’re going to be listening to their feedback, and they’re actually going to have a voice in what we do.”

While this may be GM’s first true GT3 car — previous Corvette GT3 cars were built by Callaway, and Cadillac’s ATS-V GT3 was never sold to customers — they don’t seem behind the curve compared to other manufacturers that have done several iterations of homologated race cars, although only the heat of competition will truly reveal if that’s correct. Part of that is because GM and PME have previous experience with homologated cars in the GTE/GTLM versions of the Corvette, now on its fourth generation. Another factor is that some of the key personnel, such as engineer Kyle Millay and PME technical director Ben Johnson, have been on the pit stand at Daytona and Le Mans. The Z06 GT3.R is a race car designed by a race team. The experience earned through years of racing Corvettes are going into the GT3 car.

It also doesn’t hurt that GM has vast resources in one location. GM Powertrain in Pontiac, Mich., is 40 minutes away from PME. And PME is 20 minutes away form GM’s Milford Proving Ground. They want to test something they’ve implemented on the car? No need to book time at a track hours away.

“[A couple of weeks ago] we were able to shake down a chassis at the Milford Proving Ground. So we’ve now had two tests using our own road course, which is a great opportunity to get the cars on a transporter, drive 20 minutes down the road, have two full days open on a racetrack, work on all kinds of drivability items — pulling out of the pits, things like that. We don’t have to wait and book a test day and try to get track time to work on that stuff. We just cruise right over to our proving ground and enjoy having that in-house capability. So again, there’s so much efficiency that I think is going to result in a better car,” says Bagne.

A little farther afield, the program will also benefit from the Charlotte Technical Center. In fact, Bagne credits the WEC team’s success at Portimao, a track where Corvette had never raced, with the Driver-in-the-Loop simulator and other work done in Charlotte.

Whether the experience and efficiency all comes together in success for the first Corvette GT3 will be seen at Daytona in January. But Bagne and her team certainly seem to believe they’re on the right track to produce a winning car.

Pratt Miller to provide customer Corvette Z06 GT3.R support

Chevrolet has chosen perhaps the ideal and most obvious choice to provide customer support for its nascent Corvette Z06 GT3.R program: Pratt Miller Engineering, Corvette Racing’s partner for the entirety of its 25-year modern history. The company …

The company that has helped develop each iteration of Corvette race car for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and its predecessors, as well as Le Mans and now World Endurance Championship, is helping develop the Z06 GT3.R as Corvette Racing prepares not only for the 2024 seasons of WeatherTech Championship but also WEC and eventually customer use in a variety of series worldwide. PME will provide customer technical and engineering support in both North America and worldwide to teams racing the cars. The close working relationship already established between PME and GM’s Competition Motorsports Engineering has allowed for quicker development as they seek to build the best customer racing car possible.

“Pratt Miller is doing the primary support on the technical side for the car,” says Christie Bagne, Corvette Z06 GT3.R Program Manager. “And a big benefit of that is how efficiently that works in terms of the designers sitting 50 feet away from the race team, who’s prepping the race cars, building the race cars; and they’re 50 feet away from the team who’s machining parts that will go on the race car or 50 feet away from the designers who are releasing the parts for machining. So, effectively, we have very quick feedback in terms of when an engineer releases a part, the person who’s machining that part can walk right over and give them feedback on it. And when we’re doing things like choosing air jack locations, or air jack height, or wheels, they can walk over and ask the mechanics who are actually doing the pit stops at the races to go try out different configurations to optimize for that. So we’ve had very efficient feedback in that we don’t have to wait for a track test to have crews doing the pit stops to get that feedback to the engineering team. That’s all just very quick.”

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While the 2024 Rolex 24 at Daytona seems far away, the finish line for FIA homologation is rapidly approaching. Initial wind tunnel and powertrain testing begins shortly after Le Mans, and full homologation is expected in October. In the meantime, there are opportunities for Bagne and others in the program to better understand GT3 competition as their first in-house true GT3 car marches toward fruition.

“We’ve locked in what the support is going to look like and who will be providing it, so we’re moving on to focus on things like attending key GT3 races,” explains Bagne. “We’ll be over at (the) Nurburgring 24, we’ll be meeting with the series, we’ll be looking at different teams, we’ll be seeing how they’re operating, (how they’re) successful, working through all of that, and the very unique regulations that they have there to make sure that if we choose to deploy a car in that series, we’ve gotten the lay of the land well in advance. So that’s the goal for going to Nurburgring 24 this year; it’s the goal for going to Spa 24 this year. We’re looking forward to going to the Indy 8 Hour and seeing some of the big international teams coming into the United States. All of those are just opportunities for us to learn as much as possible about this GT3 space, and what customers need to be successful within it.”

LMGT3 could be limited to two cars per manufacturer in the WEC

Imposing a limit of two cars per manufacturer in the FIA WEC’s new-for-2024 LMGT3 class is “on the table”, according to the head of Le Mans Endurance Management, Frédéric Lequien, to ensure variety and enough grid spaces for loyal teams and …

In a media roundtable discussion yesterday at Portimao, Lequien hinted that interest is high for the new LMGT3 category next year, meaning tough decisions will need to be made by the selection committee to ensure the grid is diverse and rewards loyalty from Hypercar manufacturers and teams to the championship.

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Spaces will be at a premium for the LMGT3 class, as the Hypercar field is set to expand further in 2024, with the likes of Alpine, BMW and Lamborghini joining the array of manufacturers already on the grid. With a limit on the number of full-season cars due to the number of garage spaces at certain circuits, pleasing everyone will be a near-impossible task.

“One of the ideas on the table is to have two GT3s per manufacturer, and give priority to the manufacturers involved in Hypercar,” he explained. “Saying that, we like diversity also. The perfect situation would be to have spaces for marques, and brands, not in Hypercar. We have to find a fair regulation.

“The idea is that the OEMs will choose the teams.”

What does this mean for manufacturers in GTE that have more than two customer teams in the FIA WEC, and the OEM in Aston Martin, which has been part of the FIA WEC since its inception but has no Hypercar programme?

“This is something we must take into consideration, loyalty to the championship,” Lequien said. “In a way, the success of hypercars can bring some other problems. What do we do if we have 26 Hypercars? We have 12 (10) places for GT. We will see.”

The expansion of Hypercar is also likely to spell the end of the LMP2 class in the FIA WEC, outside of the Le Mans 24 Hours, from next season. Instead, the teams in the LMP2 marketplace that aren’t set to join Hypercar from next season, will have to look further afield to programmes in the European and Asian Le Mans Series, where LMP2 cars will remain the top class.

While Lequien was unable to confirm this change or the two-car limit for GT3 factories, at this stage, as both are subject to approval by the FIA World Motorsport Council, he said an announcement is targeted for the Le Mans 24 Hours in June.

“We have to respect the process,” he said. “We discussed with the teams, we have explained to them that LMP2 is the top class in the ELMS and Asian Le Mans Series (going forward), and still eligible for the 24 Hours of Le Mans with around a minimum of 15 places.

“But we may have the possibility (of reintroducing LMP2 to the FIA WEC if there wasn’t enough GT3 and Hypercar interest combined), but not for next season.”