Le Mans 24 Hours: Ford is back!

Two private teams are planning to return the iconic Ford GT name to the legendary Le Mans 24 Hours race (12 – 13 June) in France next week, for the first time in more than 40 years.

For the 2010 Le Mans 24 Hours event, Swiss team Matech Competition and the Belgian Team Marc VDS Racing will aim to recapture the glory years with their Ford GT racers. Matech Competition has entered two cars in the GT1 category, while Marc VDS Racing will campaign a third car among the 56-strong entry.

The Matech Ford GT1 recently claimed a 1-2-3 result in the Spa 1000km, with Bas Leinders, Eric De Doncker and Markus Palttala taking the Marc VDS Racing car to overall victory. The Matech team also made a strong start in the FIA GT1 World Championship, winning both the opening round in Abu Dhabi and the third round last month in the Czech Republic. Team drivers Romain Grosjean and Thomas Mutsch lead the drivers’ standings after three of the 10 rounds.

Grosjean and Mutsch will be joined by Jonathan Hirschi at Le Mans in one of the Matech cars, while the team’s other Ford GT1 will be crewed by the all-female Swiss line-up of Natacha Gachnang, Cyndie Allemann and Rahel Frey. The Marc VDS Racing Ford GT1 will be driven as usual by Leinders, De Doncker and Palttala.

Switzerland’s Grosjean raced in Formula 1 during 2009 before joining the Matech line-up for this season, while Mutsch, from Germany, is in his fourth year with the team. Swiss-born Hirschi is another regular in the FIA GT1 World Championship, driving for Hexis AMR. He drove for Matech in the Spa 1000km this season as well as during the squad’s FIA GT Championship programme last year.

The all-female Swiss line-up in one of the Matech cars is a real first for the Le Mans 24 Hours race. Gachnang, who has recovered from a broken leg sustained in the opening GT1 championship round in Abu Dhabi, is the cousin of F1 driver Sébastien Buemi and raced in Formula 2 last season. Frey and Allemann have both raced in Formula 3.

Leinders is a former British, Benelux and European Formula Ford Champion and in 2004 was the test and reserve driver for Minardi F1 when the team campaigned the Ford Cosworth powered Minardi PS04. The Belgian is a team-mate of Finn Palttala in Marc VDS Racing’s FIA GT1 World Championship squad. De Doncker won the GT4 European Cup in both 2007 and 2008 in a Ford Mustang.

Ford GT40 – A Le Mans Legend

Ford dominated the classic sports car endurance race in the 1960s, when the GT40 won four years in a row between 1966 and 1969 and, although it is not competing as a factory team this year, Ford provides technical support to the privateers taking part.

The Ford GT40 was designed by a team of engineers from Britain and the United States, led by Eric Broadley. It debuted in April 1964, less than a year after the first engineering drawings were penned. After retiring from the 1964 Le Mans race, Carroll Shelby was handed control of the race programme.

The car retired from the lead in 1965 but claimed a spectacular and highly memorable 1-2-3 win in 1966, led by Chris Amon and Bruce McLaren. The following year Dan Gurney and AJ Foyt cruised to victory by 32 miles in the famous seven-litre red MkIV, setting an average speed record of 135.40mph. Ford’s official factory programme at Le Mans came to a close on a high.

Revised rules capped engine size at five litres in 1968. Private team John Willment Automotive converted a Mirage - a lightweight GT40 derivative – back to GT40 bodywork and Pedro Rodriguez and Lucien Bianchi claimed the car’s hat-trick at the Sarthe circuit.

The 1969 race had an especially strong entry. Jacky Ickx and Jackie Oliver fought a thrilling duel with the Porsche 908 of Hans Herrmann. The lead changed hands repeatedly in the last three hours as the lightweight GT40, dressed in the famous blue and orange Gulf Oil livery, frequently used its weight advantage to dive into the lead under braking. Ickx eventually crossed the line with a slender two second lead, which equated to just 120 metres’ advantage, after 24 hours of thrilling racing.

Matech Competition Team

Matech Competition is based in Geneva, although its race cars are manufactured close to Nürburgring in Germany. The team is headed and owned by Martin Bartek, a successful businessman with interests in finance and the organic food industry. Inspired by the race-winning heritage of the Ford GT40 Matech started to develop privately the Ford GT road car into a race car in 2007. In only its second year, the team won the FIA GT3 European championship with six wins and 10 podiums. Last year Matech finished second in the championship and claimed a class win at the 24 Hours of Spa. This season the team stepped up to the FIA GT1 World Championship.

Quote from Matech Competition Team president Martin Bartek:

"I’m tremendously proud of this Matech Team project that began only 3 years ago and which made the return of the Ford GT to Le Mans a reality. Matech’s engineers, designers and mechanics started with an original Ford GT space frame chassis and have spent thousands of hours in technical studies and development to achieve the competitiveness and reliability required of this new generation racer. Without any doubt, to see three Matech-built Ford GTs roaring down the Mulsanne Straight again after more than 40 years, will be reward enough for the whole team. Although this will be our first Le Mans experience, we’ve already proved we are capable of winning 24-hour races in the past and this added to the result recently achieved at the 1000km of Spa, where the Matech Ford GTs made a 1-2-3 sweep, makes us confident about the potential of our cars to battle for victory in the ultimate race.

Marc VDS Racing Team

The Marc VDS Racing Team was born from the passion of Marc van der Straten for motor racing. His father, Rudolph, ran a successful team during the 1970s and 1980s. The team, VDS Racing, was one of the top contenders in Can-Am, F5000, CART and International GT races. For seven years Marc was the driving force behind the Gillet Vertigo race car, which won the G2 standings three times. The team wanted a new challenge and Marc VDS bought a Ford GT1 from Matech Concepts, which it ran in the FIA GT Championship in 2009. This season the team has entered two Ford GT cars in the FIA GT1 World Championship, as well as developing the all-new Ford Mustang Marc VDS GT3, with which it is contesting the FIA GT3 European Championship.

Quote from Marc VDS Racing Team president Marc van der Straten:

"It is an honour to have been chosen as one of the eight GT1 teams that will contest this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours, one of the greatest motorsport events in the world. The whole team has worked extremely hard to ensure we are ready to face this new challenge. We were one of the strongest GT1 teams at the pre-season tests and we backed that up by winning the LMGT1 class at the recent 1000km of Spa race. None of our three drivers have ever contested the race before, but all are experienced 24- hour racers and I’m confident, especially after the win at Spa, that they are more than capable of securing a strong result for the Marc VDS Racing Team.