12 Hours of Sebring Race Results

[Stef]

You need to look at the complete story -- the Ford GTs finished behind all other OEMs in their class...behind Chevrolet, Ferrari, Porsche, and BMW....not good at all. The finish is incrementally dismal when you consider that it was the very first race for the Ferrari 488....and only the second race for the BMW M6. Granted the class was small in overall size.....but we got beat by everyone. My racer instinct is telling me that the Ford GT Team bit off too much at one time when they announced their racing efforts with this car - rather than trying to repeat history, they would have been far better off if they were more modest and said that this was a testing ground for new product innovations. The Ford GT Team is going against very well established Teams that are not newcomers to the sport.

No doubt it will be an uphill struggle..lets be hopeful...modest...and keep our fingers crossed!

"bit off more then they can chew" I seriously doubt that. What took place in the first two races is just purely what can happen to any team at any given time, its just how racing is and racing is a big part of Fords DNA, which hardly makes them "newcomers". Yes its a new car and team, and yes along with that there is a huge learning curve but Ford has been there before. Its way to early to make an assessment of whether this is going to be a success or not.

 

[Bullitt2065]

Here is something that will put what Ford is going through now with the GT into perspective.

Corvette Racing is obviously one of the giants of the sport. They're among the most capable, professional GT racing teams in the world, and the Corvette C7.R and C6.R and C5-R that came before it were as well. But it wasn't always that way.

Corvette Racing's first race was the 1999 24 Hours of Daytona where they had one car finish 3rd in class (but 30+ laps behind the GTS-class winner) and one car DNF. Following that, it took them 10 more races, and almost two full seasons of racing before the finally won their first race at Texas Motor Speedway in September of 2000. Before the win, they only finished on the lead lap of the GTS winner twice out of the 10 previous races. It was not a beautiful start to their program, but they stuck with it and have become one of the most successful GT racing teams of all time.

So while Ford is facing an uphill battle to get the GT into victory lane, no teams arrive at brilliance in endurance sports car racing overnight. I think they can be extremely proud of where they are at, up to this point and I can say with almost certainty that they've got a great race car and that they will get where they intend to go.