MOORESVILLE, NC –  June 1, 2018 – Ford Performance has started the 2018  Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Season off HOT! Seven points wins in the first 12 races, as the Ford Performance teams roll into Pocono this weekend.

* Courtesy of Ford Performance

MOORESVILLE, NC – June 5, 2018 – When the 2018 Le Mans 24 Hours gets underway next week (June 16-17) the Ford Chip Ganassi Racing team will face its greatest challenge yet. The class in which the Ford GTs compete at Le Mans – ‘GTE Pro’ – now boasts 17 of the world’s best GT cars and 51 of the world’s fastest racing drivers, making it the fiercest competition the team has faced so far.

Now in the third year of its successful Ford GT race programme, which has seen Ford Chip Ganassi Racing win at Le Mans in 2016 and finish as runner-up in 2017, the team is ready to take on all challengers.

“It’s rewarding to see all four cars come together as one team every year at Le Mans,” said Mark Rushbrook, global director of Ford Performance Motorsport. “It shows the scale of the global effort we launched in 2016 and have been building on since.

“Le Mans is always the ultimate challenge but this year it has gone up a level through the sheer size of the opposition. We’re going up against the best that Ferrari, Porsche, Aston Martin, Corvette and BMW have to offer and we can’t wait. This is why we race.”

The Le Mans 24 Hours is always a highlight in Chip Ganassi’s racing calendar and he too is fully committed to shooting for another Ford victory in 2018.

“The Le Mans 24 Hours is one of those races that you have circled on the calendar,” Ganassi said. “It has everything. It’s on an historic track in France, it is an endurance race and it is one of the most spectacular events in the world. When you win a race like Le Mans, you know you have accomplished something. It is multiple drivers, crew members and the right manufacturer all coming together. I can’t wait to get back there to compete for another win.”

The #66 Ford GT crew of Stefan Mücke (GER), Olivier Pla (FRA) and Billy Johnson (USA) took their first victory in the opening round of the FIA World Endurance Championship at Spa in Belgium last month. Le Mans has been hard on them over the last two years, so they hope the Spa win signals a change in their fortunes.

In the #67 Ford GT, IndyCar star Tony Kanaan (BRA) joins last year’s runners-up, Andy Priaulx (GB) and Harry Tincknell (GB), and they all have their eye on the top step of the podium.

Already podium finishers in 2018, the drivers of the #68 Ford GT are the history-makers: the crew that took Ford’s first modern-day Le Mans win in 2016. Joey Hand (USA), Sébastien Bourdais (FRA) and Dirk Müller (GER) would love to do the double.

The drivers of the #69 Ford GT got their 2018 campaign off to the best possible start by winning the Rolex 24 At Daytona. Ryan Briscoe (AUS), Richard Westbrook (GB) and Scott Dixon (NZ) are more than ready for another 24-hour win.

*Courtesy of Ford Performance

Le Mans – June 14, 2018 – After a successful test on the Circuit de la Sarthe just over a week ago, the Ford GTs of Ford Chip Ganassi Racing took to the legendary Le Mans track for real today, putting four cars through a four-hour Free Practice Session and then a late-night, two-hour provisional qualifying session.

In the first of three qualifying sessions, the GTs qualified 3rd, 4th, 8th and 10th in the very strong 17-car GTE Pro Class. Leading the team was the No. 66 Ford GT of Billy Johnson (USA), Stefan Mücke (DEU) and Olivier Pla (FRA), who managed a 3:49.191 lap during the cool evening. The trio won the season-opening FIA WEC race at Spa in May.

The No. 68 of Joey Hand (USA), Sébastien Bourdais (FRA) and Dirk Müller (DEU) was just a tick behind their teammates at 3:49.582 as the team looks to repeat its 2016 class victory here. Bourdais, a native of Le Mans, returns after a one-year absence due to injuries in practice for the 2017 Indianapolis 500.

This evening’s qualifying followed today’s afternoon practice session that saw the cars go 4th (No. 66), 8^th (No. 68), 9th (No. 69) and 10^th (No. 67). Quickest time for the Ford GT during practice was 3:51.498.

The No. 67 team is made up of IndyCar star Tony Kanaan (BRA), Andy Priaulx (GBR) and Harry Tincknell (GBR). The No. 69 team includes 2018 Rolex 24 at Daytona GTLM champions Ryan Briscoe (AUS), Richard Westbrook (GBR) and Scott Dixon (NZL).

The teams return to the track this evening for two more, two-hour qualifying sessions at 19:00 (1:00pm – 3:00pm EST) hours and 22:00 (4:00pm-6:00pm EST) hours.

*Courtesy of Ford Performance

LE MANS, France, June 18, 2018 – For the third consecutive year, a Ford GT driver trio is on the GTE Pro podium at the Le Mans 24 Hours

Joey Hand (US), Sébastien Bourdais (FRA) and Dirk Müller (GER), drivers of the #68 Ford GT who captured a victory here in 2016, returned to the podium with a strong, third-place finish in 86th running of the world’s toughest endurance sports car race.

The trio was in the mix of the battle for the top spot early in the race with the winning No. 92 Porsche 911 RSR when an ill-timed safety car caught #68 and the other leaders in the pits, causing the rest of the GTE Pro field to be nearly a lap down the rest of the race.

“It was great to be back at Le Mans, said Bourdais, the native of Le Mans who missed the race with injuries last year.  “It was a tough race, but we maximized everything as a team. And for that I am super proud of everyone at Ford Chip Ganassi Racing.  We did all we could and finished third, so that’s the cards we were dealt.  We’ll take them and move on.

“A good day at the office I would call it,” said Müller. “Being on the podium at Le Mans is almost like winning because this race is so special and unique.  P3 I know, but I am still smiling.  For the 68 Ford GT, a victory in 2016 and a third place today means a lot. I look forward to coming back next year and going back up two more spots. It was great job for all the boys who did a great job, and for our WEC boys, I am glad they got good points today.”

“We maximized our potential,” said Hand. “We always work to have really good race car.  It takes having a really good race car to win here, and we did.  We have no damage on our car at all.   We just got caught out a couple times there with safety cars and that hurt us, and we couldn’t make it up.  I have been here four times and been on the podium three of them, so that’s pretty cool.”

The #68 Ford GT did battle at length with the No. 91 Porsche 911 RSR for much of the second half of the race along with the #67 Ford GT of Harry Tincknell (GB), Andy Priaulx (GB) and Tony Kanaan (BRA), who just missed a podium with a fourth-place finish.

That fourth place helped the #67 trio score major points in the WEC championship, moving them into third place.

“For me personally this has been a good Le Mans,” said Andy Priaulx. “I had a lot of fun in the car, a lot of time in the car (8.5 hours) and I am driving with a brilliant team. I wouldn’t say we had the speed to win but we had the team to win. We could’ve done it today, but we were very unlucky with an early safety car, which put us two minutes behind and it’s so hard to get that time back. We got back up into the top two or three positions then we had more bad luck with a safety car. Despite this we had a great race. The car was great, the team did a brilliant job and we finished fourth in a race that is very difficult to finish at all.

“We scored some good points for the WEC Championship (third place) so we’re back on the scoreboard and we will come back fighting.  Harry (Tincknell) was the normal Harry: awesome, faultless and super quick. It was great to have Tony (Kanaan) with us too. It’s never easy to join a new team and race around Le Mans but he trusted us all and we became a strong team very quickly.”

The #66 Ford GT, raced by Stefan Mücke (GER), Olivier Pla (FRA) and Billy Johnson (US), was the top Ford qualifier in third, and was very competitive early before an on-track incident caused the car to go off-road and be damaged, losing significant time in the pits.

The trio, which won the WEC season-opening race at Spa, battled back to finish seventh in class, scoring valuable championship points.  They now sit fourth in the standings.

“We gave it everything today,” said Pla. “We pushed so hard as we had to recover when we lost two laps early on (due to suspension damage suffered when Billy Johnson had contact with a prototype). We had high expectations for this race. The Porsche was strong, but we had a good car for the battle and all I can say is thanks to the guys on our car because they did a fantastic job.

“Apart from that costly contact, nobody put a foot wrong so it’s disappointing that we spent the race fighting back rather than fighting from the front.  Stefan (Mücke) as always did a great job and now we’ll focus on the WEC Super Season. In terms of the WEC Championship we actually finished fourth today so, added to our win at Spa, we have a good amount of points to build on throughout the rest of the season.”

The #69 Ford GT of Ryan Briscoe (AUS), Richard Westbrook (UK) and Scott Dixon (NZ), who were trying for a rare 24-hour double after their victory in the Rolex 24 at Daytona earlier this year, were running sixth with two hours to go before being hit with gearbox issues. The team repaired the car to allow it to finish the race.

“I think we battled hard. We certainly just seemed to lack a little bit of the pace through the night,” said Briscoe. “I think with our set-up and the combination of losing a little bit of track position, that hit us twice as hard when you lose the safety car lines. We lost touch with the leaders, but we were racing hard and hanging in there. We were going to have a great battle right until the end with Corvette. I had a really fun race. It just love driving on this race track. It’s so intense. It’s such a competitive field, literally pushing you out there to drive as hard as you can for 24 hours.”

Although not a victory, Mark Rushbrook, global director, Ford Performance Motorsports, was impressed with the team’s effort today.

“You want to win every race you compete in, but to come here, the world’s hardest sports car race, and see the effort that Ford Chip Ganassi Racing put in was great,” said Rushbrook. “They fought hard all day, finished third on the podium for the third straight year and for the third straight year all our cars finished.  It’s unfortunate that most of the GTE Pro field got caught out by that early safety car because it changed the dynamic of the race. But we have to be proud of what this team did.”

“We brought competitive cars here and I was happy with that aspect, but this is a race where you need a little bit of lady luck on your side, and unfortunately this time around we didn’t have that,” said Chip Ganassi, owner, Ford Chip Ganassi Racing. “We got separated from the pace car on one occasion, and then held back in a few of the slow zones, and that was costly. The leaders didn’t have to deal with that, and they benefited from the situation. I was a little disappointed with that, but that’s the way it goes here. Le Mans picks its winner. And it just didn’t pick us this year.”

*Courtesy of Ford Performance