The message was conveyed with a smile and laugh, but underscored the importance of the race.
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To commemorate the historic podium dominance, Ford has developed a special GT supercar.
The Ford GT team brought home fourth and fifth at the 2016 series’ opening race in Silverstone, then achieved second in Spa. We know that everybody is expecting us to do well. “You know, the safety factor, not that we, anywhere we ran was like that, but there were a couple places that I took particular notice”. He recalls walking down a hallway, past a big room where designers were crafting full size clay models of cars. 66-69 – and 12 drivers to the race, which begins at 9 a.m. eastern time on Saturday. According to the Blue Oval, the team worked for three weeks to complete the project, and over 40,000 LEGO bricks were required for the 1/3 sized replica of the modern Ford GT race auto.
“It would be incredibly unique to get a win at Le Mans”.
“This is not a normal auto race”.
Back in those days, the top speed of the GT40 was 100mph more than some of the other cars on the track, so it could be quite hairy, especially at night in the rain with mist hanging in the air, bearing down on these cars when you couldn’t see much. I also had some interesting conversations with Henry Ford II and his wife Cristina, during the night. Edsel Ford added the initials “HFII” to the re-created pins he gave the drivers.
Briscoe, a victor in the Verizon IndyCar Series, missed this year’s Indy 500 because of conflicts with the Ford GT Le Mans program. The GT won again in 1967, 1968 and 1969 – the previous year it competed.
Briscoe and Hand will raise the flag, they said, above the Ford Performance compound this weekend. “This year, I thought it would be very important to tip my hat to my father”. Each auto will have three drivers who will take shifts at the wheel during the 24-hour race. One split-second error can destroy a auto, and-as we have seen so many times at the Circuit de la Sarthe-destroy humans as well. To race a brand new auto at Le Mans requires insane amounts of money, man hours, and development-all of which these cars now embody.
The 8.5-mile road course is part of a grueling race that tests the drivers for up to five hours at a time.
However, the team only has to look back a year to see how the opening results can be discarded by a good finish at Le Mans, where double points are issued.
“I think the timing sheets pretty much speak for themselves”, Corvette Racing program manager Doug Fehan told RACER.
The team will have plenty of time to prepare.
At the end of the day, endurance racing is the ultimate test for man and machine, and that hasn’t changed a bit in the last 50 years. In between their driving stints, both say they’ll eat, get a massage and attempt to sleep.
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A handful of drivers stopped to take pictures of Hand as he cruised around the city in a white and blue Shelby GT 350. “We have some ex-Audi personnel on our team and they said that even when Audi was in its heyday they never achieved anything like that”. “I’m just hoping we make more history”.
