Ford GT programme in Full Swing
With Ford’s announcement at of their return to GT racing at Le Mans last month, Ganassi Racing has swept into action with partners Multimatic and Roush Yates engines to ensure their pre-season testing programme is on track for their much anticipated debut in 2016.
Chip Ganssi Racing managing director Mike Hull spoke with Daily Sports Car’s Marshall Pruett about the task ahead in developing the V6 EcoBoost-powered GT-40.
“For us it’s pretty controlled on the calendar in terms of what’s going to happen,” Hull 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.”
Hull says that their Canadian engineering partner is currently in the advanced stages of developing the GT-40 in their high-speed laboratory, with a rough release date scheduled for Labor Day. September 1st.
“Multimatic are already well down the road building our first car. They’ve met all the schedules so far, which has been really good, been impressive”.
Hull hopes to test the car from September through to November in what will be an aggressive shakedown programme at a number of North American circuits such as Daytona, Sebring and Circuit of the Americas. Another possible test track could be NOLA Motorsports Park, with Gannasi Racing preferring the Avondale track based on their Indy car experience.
“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.
Given the enormous task Ganassi Racing has undertaken by representing Ford’s GT and IMSA programme, Multimatic will be handling the GT’s first official test in September when the car is presented for ACO/FIA Balance of Performance testing in France.