2016 Ford GT at LeMans (GTE Pro class)

Just saw this news as I got to work- https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2015/06/12/ford-gt-le-mans.html

Looks like I need to become more of a Ganassi fan.

Interesting side note from me- to the Tudor organizers- do note that the first thing about this car is that it's FOR Le Mans. Secondary was to allow it to run in the Tudor series.

Same note to the FIA endurance racing organizers.

No matter how infuriating the organizers of Le Mans are and surely will be in the future, this race is THE race. Hopefully some more agreement to have a more global set of series will eventually come about.

Anyway- interesting. I'm quite pleased about it, especially with Corvette winning this past weekend.

Yeah, They talked about it throughout the broadcasts of the race.

The other big news that wasn't talked about as much is Brabham racing has a garage spot for LMP2 next year. From David's announcement:

"We are now in the process of talking to potential investors and partners to make bringing Brabham Racing back a reality, and compete in the 2016 WEC and the prestigious Le Mans 24 Hours," said David. "I have many meetings planned this week and it will be great to see the thousands of fans that come to the mecca of sportscars. For me having raced and won one of the biggest races in the world was an amazing experience, but to go there as a team owner and win will be incredible.

It will always be about LeMans though. That is the race. Shoot they draw more fans into LeMans than 4 of the regular WEC events combined. There were over 237K fans at the race.

Really looking forward to this.

Still like Corvettes though.

I love the looks of this car, I'm glad IMSA is allowing the GT3 spec cars in the Tudor series next year.

In reply to bmw88rider:

They announced 266k fans about 1hr before the finish.

I'll laugh if the GT racer will be able to quick change front and rear clips like the prototypes do.

Lancer007 wrote: I love the looks of this car, I'm glad IMSA is allowing the GT3 spec cars in the Tudor series next year.

I was kind of surprised that the LeMans GTE Pro and Am series were not immediately in the Tudor series- as it seems as if there needs to be a US way to get to LeMans. By the nature of this annoucement- both the FIA and IMSA need to see that LeMans is the race.

So teams like Dempsy would be helped greatly by being able to run their LeMans spec car all year.

The only single race that is bigger than LeMans is Indy. And that's such a shadow of it's former self, it's not even funny. The FCO has figured out a set of rules that have attracted some interesting prototypes- Audi, Porsche, Toyota, with some more engins in P2(datsun and honda), but a great set of manufacturers in the GT class- Porch, Ferrari, GM, Aston, Chrysler- it's really awesome. Now Ford next year.

It's the kind of problem F1 would love to have.

In reply to alfadriver:

F1 doesn't like innovation unless its a skirting of an already bent rule.

They could easily fill 5-10 more garage spots I think. They have it limited at the 56 as it sits. I would love to see bentley back at lemans as well.

In reply to bmw88rider:

I can only hope at least 2 of the 4 spots allocated to Ford's GT effort came from the Nismo LMP1H team.....all the other competitors put on a good race.

I would rather see LMP1 back in the US besides the one race in Austin. I'm sure Nissan will get there. I was more surprised at the Toyotas. I thought they would have been more competitive for the lead.

As for the GT it's cool to see more competitors in the GT field.

In reply to DirtyBird222:

Porsche rolled out a new hybrid setup at the beginning of the season and Audi just unveiled a massively trimmed out version of the r18 at Spa......they just got caught out between a rock and a hard place.