Ford GTs at Lemans TV coverage

[Nathan Stone]

Re: Proud Of Ford Winning LeMans Today!

Great showing for Ford!

 

[Keith]

Re: Proud Of Ford Winning LeMans Today!

Not being pedantic but the Ford GT's won their class not the overall Le Mans win. 50 years ago Ford won Le Mans overall. When are Ford going to produce a LMP-1 car and win Le Mans overall like the 1966 victory? And yes I feel for Toyota; but Le Mans is a endrance race a race of attrition not one of outright speed the winner is the one thats there at the end.
Regards Allan

And they also won overall in a Group 4 car (Sports) in 1968 beating the new 3.0 litres Prototype, class so in some ways, that was more of an epic win than any other!

 

[Malcolm]

Re: Proud Of Ford Winning LeMans Today!

I confess I know nothing about racing but I thought this was interesting, and the response from someone even more interesting after some anti Ford pro Ferrari posts appeared.

Both the winning and runner-up cars in the GTE Pro division of the 24 Hours of Le Mans were both penalised post-race, after the Chip Ganassi Team USA and Risi Competizione teams protested each other.
The winning #68 Ford GT – driven by Dirk Muller, Joey Hand and Sebastien Bourdais – was given a 50s penalty after Risi alleged it had been speeding in a slow zone. Additionally, stewards also found that the #68’s wheel speed sensors were not working properly – and a further 20s penalty was added.
This would have handed the victory for the #82 Ferrari, driven by Giancarlo Fisichella, Toni Vilander and Mateo Malucelli.
Ganassi, meantime, had protested the Ferrari as one of its leader light panels was not working. The car had been shown a black and orange warning flag in the closing stages of the race to have this rectified, but failed to pit as instructed.
Stewards also gave this car a 20s penalty ¬– and a EUR5,000 fine.
The re-issued final result means that the #68 Ford GT wins the class by 10.2s from the #82 Ferrari.
The #69 Ford, which finished third, closes to just 4.6s behind the #82Ferrari. The top three cars were covered by 15s after 24 hours of racing.
The decision upholds Ford’s class victory 50 years on from its first Le Mans win, when it beat Ferrari for overall honours in 1966.

Biff Stenhouse14 hours ago
Contrived post-race hogwash! #82 Risi Competizione 20 seconds & $5K penalty after evading a repair that was seemingly identical to that which took #67 Ford +/- 15 minutes & cost them 3 laps? What a crock! This penalty should have been more like 20 minutes, NOT seconds! In Nascar, ignoring race control gets your scoring card pulled, yet WEC essentially screws-over the compliant team, then rewards & promotes the lawless cheaters? Nice precedent WEC!
Since the #69 Ford was only 25 seconds behind #82 & the #67 was only about 5 mins behind, after conducting the identical mandatory repair the #82 evaded... This goes as a FORD 1 - 2 - 3 in my books! No question! Thanks & congrats to Ford Performance, Chip Ganassi Racing Teams, Multimatic Motorsports & Roush Yates Engines on this epic slice of FoMoCo history!

Not everyone sees this as clearly as you do! Remember Ford did not sell any cars prior to taking part in this event so had to apply for a waiver which the other teams gave them else they would not have been allowed to come out to play. Add in the sandbagging rumours and the BoP adjustments and then Ford protest a team over some lights that tell spectators info and so is not performance related, the question of if this protest was in the same spirit gets raised. Doubt Ford will get a waiver again from some of the other teams next time around. Check out Piston Heads discussion for the other side of the coin argument.

I just feel gutted for Toyota. Soooooo close and yet so far. Reminds me when I did the VIR 13 hours charge of the light brigade and entered the last lap 3rd in class (ie jolly good result) and ran out of fuel at Oak Tree. Aaaaaargh!

 

[Mike]

Was there a single person who thought that Ford was not going to win this race on their 50th anniversary of the 1966 event? The entire thing was an exercise in marketing 101 for Ford. Big brother sunk millions of dollars into winning the race by any means necessary so we can all be bombarded with EcoBoost commercials for the next 3 years. None of you on here will ever be given the opportunity to purchase the street version as they will all be allocated via corporate level sweetheart backroom deals. I take that back, there is one person on here who is sure thing for being awarded one. The smug is strong!

 

[Mesa]

Whenever there is BOP involved its not really a race, it's a show. Although I must give Corvette big props for winning their class so many times, that actually goes some miles with me. I'm really surprised GM does not make much of that in regard to Corvette pedigree.

I didn't get to see the end of the race, blast my provider!
(Just looked it up the finish, I am just crushed for Toyota they did such a great job)

The only class that really wins or loses on it's own without so much BS is P1 IMO

 

[Jack]

Same statement as Rob!

 

[Keith]

Whenever there is BOP involved its not really a race, it's a show. Although I must give Corvette big props for winning their class so many times, that actually goes some miles with me. I'm really surprised GM does not make much of that in regard to Corvette pedigree.

I didn't get to see the end of the race, blast my provider!
(Just looked it up the finish, I am just crushed for Toyota they did such a great job)

The only class that really wins or loses on it's own without so much BS is P1 IMO

Nailed!

 

[Keith]

also gutted to learn that Ford will definitely NOT be selling customer race cars. Robertson was begging for one - cash waiting, but nope.

Pleased for their 'achievement' but once again spitting in the eye of the Ford Faithful...:veryangry:

Seems nothing has changed...

 

[Mike]

Like I said... despicable group of cheaters

Political Decisions at Le Mans Could Lead to Sports-Car Explosion

Balance of Performance is a high stakes game of poker with every manufacturer having a seat at the table. Every team bluffs, sandbagging during the off-season testing, not showing their cars full potential at the early races of the year. And they try to hide or manipulate data for the various sanctioning bodies. Ford did this better than anyone else leading up to Le Mans. BoP adjustments were made and Ford had a massive advantage compared to the field. And then Le Mans qualifying came. Ford, instead of going just fast enough, say 1.5 seconds faster than it ran during the Le Mans test weekend, went a blistering 4 seconds quicker. It essentially sent a message of “we played all of you.” What it also did was embarrass the WEC technical staff. So that staff adjusted the BoP again the day before the race. But it did so not nearly enough for most of the grid, as the Ford ran a race pace several seconds quicker than Corvette, Porsche, and Aston Martin.

 

[Keith]

Turbocharging greatly facilitates this kind of bollocks. Harder to do with N/A though not impossible..