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Ford Hopes Le Mans Car 'Won't Look Like An Oreca'Ford
In around 12 months, Ford's first top-tier, factory-built prototype since the late 1960s will make its racing debut. The entire next year at Ford Racing is about making that happen, the most important steps in the process of developing a car that the Blue Oval's performance division hopes can mirror Ferrari's 499 P in breaking a half-century drought by winning at the 24 Hours of Le Mans upon debut.
Program lead Dan Sayers is the person tasked with such a lofty goal. He leads a group building a still-unnamed prototype, one we know will pair an Oreca LMDh chassis with a 5.4-liter engine distantly related to Ford's road-going Coyote small blocks. Full details of the car are still months away, but we do know that its V-8 is going to roar.
The common chassis has raised some concerns in sports car circles, though. It's not the fact that the partner is shared that's a problem; all LMDh-spec prototypes are built with one of four options, and Oreca is one of just two manufacturers that has partnered with multiple brands to date. The Oreca-based cars revealed so far have a unique problem over the Dallara-based cars: All three of the Acura, Alpine, and Genesis racers built on the Oreca chassis so far share a frustratingly familiar shape, complete with an elevated front wing section that Acura debuted on its previous-generation Oreca DPi.
When asked about the experience of working with a chassis partner that has three other OEM partners, Sayers tells Road & Track in a roundtable that "Ford would like the hypercar to represent Ford."
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A previous generation of Ford prototype at Le MansBernard Cahier - Getty Images
"So the aerodynamics and body shape, we have a lot of input from our studio. It's not just clearly done from an Oreca aerodynamics perspective; we have our aero team, we have our studio. So, again, hopefully it represents a Ford and it doesn't look like an Oreca. It's all done in isolation, and we have no idea what the other previous teams have done."
Sayers joked that he hoped Oreca's work with manufacturers "gets better each time" before stating that the engineering work being done between Oreca and Ford is also done in isolation, noting, "I'm sure it's similar engineers, but we have no visibility of what they've done previously other than the photos we'd get of any other car during events ... complete privacy, as you can imagine from a professional outlet like Oreca. There's no conflict of interest. Very different engines in each, so the cars are very different."
Logistical plans for the program are coming together, too. Like the GT40 program before it, the new Ford LMDh program takes advantage of Ford's global reach to play on strengths from both its American and European arms. That means that while U.S.-based Ford Racing employees are working on engine development, those in Europe are shoring up key partnerships that will get the car on the road very soon.
One of those partners will be Venture Engineering, a firm currently running GT cars out of the U.K. Not only will the group serve to back up the factory team Ford is building for its WEC effort, its shop will house the Le Mans racers between events.
"[The hypercars] will be operated and kept in the U.K., with Venture," Sayers said. "The facility is undergoing a few mods, but nothing major, just to make sure we can house them and have some private areas there, some dedicated Ford areas. It's a race facility, there's capability there for machining, fabrication, subassembly, it's a ready-to-go operation."
Staffing for the program is already underway, including major engineering hires. Former Audi and Mazda prototype engineer Leena Gade is part of that group, as is former Porsche Penske 963 engineer and 2024 WEC championship winner Jean-Philippe Sarrazin.
"[Modern Le Mans hypercars] are hugely complex," Sayers says. "As we all know now, the software is key. To have somebody like Jean-Philippe on the program is very important. To have LMDh experience is very important, because you don't know what you don't know. We have a lot of very good technicians, we have a lot of good performance engineers and systems engineers, some of which have got hypercar experience. Someone who understands the concept of LMDh—what can help, what can't help, has been through it, it's proved beneficial multiple times. [Sarrazin] is a great guy to have on board, and if you talk about a benchmark, Porsche Penske are right up there as well."
One of Ford's highest-profile hires is former Formula 1 driver Logan Sargeant, who will spend the 2026 season racing a GT-class Mustang in the World Endurance Championship. Sargeant tells R&T that his conversations with other prototype drivers suggest that Oreca-based LMDh cars don't share as many driving dynamics with a GT car as the Dallara-based cars do, but he still thinks the experience will be valuable.
"What's going to be very important for next year," Sargeant adds, "is to learn the championship best I can. Understand the rules, understand the traits, the weird things every championship has."
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James Gilbert - Getty Images
As the only American named to the program to date, Sargeant is set to be the first American driver in an American manufacturer's prototype in any full season of the FIA World Endurance Championship so far. He also has the chance to be the first American to win Le Mans overall since Davy Jones won the race in 1996. The weight of being an American in a Ford program is not lost on him.
"It's definitely nice, that's for sure. I think, being an American, being around Ford cars growing up my entire life ... my dad's had a Ford truck since I've been born, we've never not had one. It's really cool to be a part of that, to be in something so familiar for me."
"To have the opportunity to win at Le Mans with Ford will be amazing, especially in the hypercar class, which is what everyone's goal is. I'm going to be pushing hard to make that a reality. It's definitely a huge privilege for me."
Sayers says that both the engine and hybrid system are currently on dynos, crucial steps ahead of a first planned test later this year. A full reveal of the car should come around the same time as the car's first on-track running, perhaps even sooner. All of that leads to a racing debut when 2027 FIA World Endurance Championship season kicks off around early next spring, culminating in an all-important Le Mans debut in June of next year.
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