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[car engine revving]
[slow music playing]
[indistinct chatter]
[interviewer] So, Edsel, where does this story begin?
That's the hardest question I've ever been asked.
[interviewer laughs]
I think this really starts on October 10th, 1901,
when Henry Ford won a car race
with a vehicle called "Sweepstakes."
It set the path
for Ford Motor Company.
[Bill Ford] Ford was born on a racetrack.
It really is how we began as a company
and with my great-grandfather,
and so, ever since then, we've raced.
The GT40 program was our first venture
into European-style road racing
against European cars.
We wanted to go racing in Europe to beat the Europeans.
Especially Ferrari.
[Preston Lerner] In the early '60s,
Enzo Ferrari realized that he needed some corporate help
if he wanted his company to continue to grow
and if he wanted to compete at the uppermost levels of motorsport.
And at the same time, Ford Motor Company
realized they wanted to change their image.
They wanted to, sort of, appeal to the younger buyers
and they thought racing might be a good way to do that,
so emissaries from each company
sort of found the other and they started negotiating.
Ford sent Don Frey who was high up in the hierarchy,
to negotiate with Enzo Ferrari.
Things went well for a while, and then they didn't go so well,
and Ferrari left Ford at the altar.
Henry Ford II, who was then running the company,
he was really peeved
that he had essentially gotten the finger from Enzo Ferrari.
And that's when he told Don Frey,
"If we can't join him, we'll go beat him."
Back then, the pinnacle of road racing
around the world
was going to be Le Mans.
[TV narrator] Le Mans is quiet little French community most of the year,
until the month of June,
when nearly half a million racing enthusiasts
transform it into the motor racing capital of the world.
[Jim Farley] That was about
as ambitious as you can get as an American company,
to go to Europe and race at Le Mans to beat Ferrari,
who was dominant at that time,
actually, had just won so many years in a row.
[narrator on TV] Ferrari of Italy
has won the race seven times out of the last eight.
No American car has ever won.
[Edsel Ford] My father wanted to beat Ferrari
and it didn't make any difference what it cost.
[Mose Nowland] He was really serious about winning the race.
We had all the budget, the facilities and materials that we needed.
Anything we thought that we needed was right there.
[Peter De Lorenzo] The first Ford GT was actually a modified Lola coupe
with a Ford racing body on it.
It was an elegant, beautiful car.
Problem is, at speed the air would lift the front wheels.
They got to Le Mans in '64.
Phil Hill set the fastest lap of the race,
but he said it's almost undriveable.
I think the first car caught fire in the third hour or something.
It was a huge bust.
We didn't win that first year, but we learned a lot.
[Peter] They came back in '65. It was a little better.
They showed up at Daytona and had some success.
And then by '66, they were ready.
[TV narrator] Ford challenged last year with the GT40 Mk. I.
Now they are here with the faster Mk. II.
Henry Ford, his wife, and young son, Edsel,
have arrived to see the investment pay off.
[engines revving]
[news reporter] In the first lap, the track was wet from a light rain.
Still, the Americans' aggressive strategy is clear from the start.
Take the lead early, set a fast and punishing pace, and outlast the competition.
All afternoon, all night, all morning,
the Ford GTs were still in the lead.
And here they come for the finish.
First place, the number two Ford GT.
Second place, the number one Ford GT.
Third place, the number five Ford GT.
An authoritative win for the American challengers.
[Bill] The iconic one-two-three finish at Le Mans was, you know,
perhaps, of all the great moments,
that was probably the defining moment in Ford's race history.
[Justin Bell] My history at Le Mans, as a kid, started
when I was four months old, the first time I went.
And then, pretty much uninterrupted till I was about 18.
I've had five top threes at Le Mans.
Um, I've raced there 11 times.
This is my 36th time to Le Mans.
Um, so a lot of my life has been spent there,
and a lot of exposure to big teams.
There's a genuine excitement that the Ford GT is in there.
There are fans there that will have remembered
the cars in 1966.
The sad part about modern sports car racing
is that no one really goes.
You feel that you're doing it for TV, not for the crowd.
Go to Le Mans, you feel like you're doing it for real people.
For drivers that have never been there before,
it must seem like a zoo.
I'm down here at the drivers' parade.
This is a tradition on the Friday of Le Mans.
And we are here to, uh,
go around the town.
The fans have come out in their droves.
It could be 100,000 people just over there
and we'll drive round for half an hour.
We've got 8,000 wristbands and flags to throw out to them.
It's a chance for them to see the drivers up close
before the big race tomorrow.
It's a unique experience.
You feel like a bit of rock star because thousands of fans
are screaming your name, everything like that.
It's an incredible experience.
[Sebastien] This is where I studied driving
when I was 15 years old, and I know a lot of people around here.
They saw me grow from the new kid
in town trying to make it, you know, to, kind of,
an accomplished race car driver.
At least a professional who's making a living from his passion,
which was all I could really hope for in the beginning.
[indistinct crowd chatter]
[Richard Westbrook] Le Mans is Le Mans.
It's the Super Bowl of sports car racing.
To come back on the 50th anniversary,
of course we would love to do it again.
I think there's more competition this year,
if I'm allowed to say that.
There's more manufacturers.
We have Aston, Ferrari, Porsche...
Corvette, us,
the three other Fords racing.
The competition has never ever been stronger,
particularly in this category.
Whoever wins this year is gonna really deserve it.
[Mario Franchitti] I am someone who love the history of this sport.
Ford won this race four times in a row between '66 and '69.
To be coming back with the new Ford GT
with four incredible cars is very exciting for everybody.
I'm very excited to get on with it and get racing on Saturday
'cause that's what really matters.
What I became a sports car driver for was to race here at Le Mans.
And I can't imagine what it would be like to win this thing.
[Raj Nair] So, you know what, I...
I'm not here really to give you a pep talk.
You guys are all professionals.
And you know why we're here. You know what we're here to do.
But I think there is one thing that I will remind you of, maybe.
All of you have probably raced in events
that were more important to you,
but there is one thing that I guarantee you.
You will never race again for as many people
as we're racing for this weekend.
Ford's raced a lot, you know that.
We've won at the Monaco Grand Prix.
We've won Formula One championships. We've won the Indy 500.
Fifty years ago, we raced here,
we swept the podium, and it meant a lot,
because it meant we took on the world and we won.
So, I'm gonna be totally unfair,
and remind you that unfortunately there's only one chance
to celebrate a 50th anniversary.
The only thing they're asking of us,
this weekend, is to go like hell.
So, let's do that.
[applauding]
I can't remember the time that I actually fell in love with motor racing.
It's strange because there's no one in my family that is into cars.
Like, you know, it wasn't something my dad introduced me into.
From as long as I can remember,
it's something I've been in love with.
[Dave Pericak] This is really Raj's baby.
He absolutely has been the driving force behind this
and the one who had the vision for all of this to happen.
So, all we're doing is executing on his vision.
We've always been thinking about building another Ford GT.
The 50th anniversary of the win in '66 was coming up.
We felt we really have to do something to honor that win.
Raj and Mark came to me and said,
"We got something you're gonna like."
In the car business,
dates count and anniversaries count.
We have the 50th anniversary of Le Mans coming up.
Why don't we do another GT?
[Peter] When you talk Ford GT, that's a higher calling within the company.
That's an icon that lives on.
Fifty years later, they're still talking about it.
They're still talking about it in France.
Well, I mean, one thing's for sure, when we decided to do the GT,
the birthday party was gonna happen,
the 50th anniversary, one way or another, and the time was ticking.
We've got a lot to prove to not only the world,
but even the people inside our company, and we intend to do that.
[Raj] The rules in GT racing are these are production-based race cars,
and so, you have to have a production car that you're building from,
but we're still developing the production cars,
so, we got agreement from all the other manufacturers
to allow us to race,
as long as we delivered the production car in a customer's hands
by the end of the year.
[revving]
Race car development and production car development almost start at opposite ends.
Race car, we start from the tire
and we optimize everything. What does a tire want?
Production car, we start from the driver
and then we work everything downstream with the driver to make it feel right.
It's a lot of engineering to do simultaneously,
having to go through all the legal things you need to go through
and the durability things you need to go through for a street car.
And then, be thinking ahead about what would be ideal on the track.
[peppy classical music playing]
[Peter] People were identified within the company with areas of expertise.
Engines,
suspension technology,
aerodynamics.
It launched this internal skunkworks within Ford.
It was a completely confidential project.
It was a decision on the part of the team to build it,
not so much as a dedicated supercar,
but almost as a laboratory
for what is possible for the rest of the Ford line.
To me, that was a very interesting approach.
But there are difficulties,
'cause if you do that, can you really be competitive?
Can we really take an EcoBoost engine
and make it a competitive race engine?
[Dave Simon] It's a combination of direct injection,
turbocharging, variable cam timing.
So, you can make a tremendous amount of power
but you can get really great fuel economy out of them too
which actually is an advantage, quite an advantage for a race engine.
[Dave Pericak] Who would've thought that we'd be putting a V6 engine in a supercar?
That's a bold statement, when we said we're gonna do that.
Carbon fiber, which has had tremendous application in racing already,
to get the weight out, to get the strength up.
The Ford GT is almost entirely carbon fiber.
We're learning a lot from that,
and we're working with our partners to make it at lower costs,
so we can then expand the use of carbon fiber to the rest of the Ford lineup.
We get to use racing to push the boundaries
for everyday passenger cars that are in people's driveways.
First M1 is moving. It's actually mobile,
it's very restricted calibration.
Raj, I've explained to you, it's only 3,000 RPM.
Shifts are gonna be delayed. It's gonna be rough.
-It's treating 3,000 as a redline? -It is.
[low engine hum]
[Raj] You're coming in with an all new car and an all new team.
We're still learning the car, we're still developing the car.
Things will happen that we didn't anticipate.
Whether it's tactics, whether it's endurance,
whether it's technical issues,
whether it's, do you have enough outright speed,
you don't know any of that until you get out on the track.
[revving]
[Raj] It's the most fun I've had doing 20 miles an hour.
[all laughing]
Didn't start eating without us?
[employee] All the pizza's gone.
-What do you mean the pizza's gone? -There's pizza and subs.
We don't have cooling problems with these engines.
In fact, we have the opposite.
We have trouble keeping temperature in them when it's cold outside.
Upon teardown, we did not see any other signs of distress.
The engine looked, actually, really good for 20 hours.
We would say with pretty good confidence that,
that engine would pass the durability test.
-So we got a race-proven engine in 16? -Yes, we do.
And Larry's already started bolting it in.
We're working with Larry Holt, mastermind from Multimatic.
And Multimatic brings to it expertise that we don't have at Ford.
They are great racers
and they know how to put race cars together better than anybody.
When it comes to the road car, and a ground-up road car,
I think, I think that
there's been a bit of a learning curve on exactly what it takes,
but again, we're partners in this.
Starting to look at a lot of work on the front underwing,
where we found we're hugely powerful but very sensitive.
We're trying to move the center pressure on the underwing,
so it's not so pitch sensitive.
We like it a lot,
but it doesn't pinge on the front of your car, guys.
But we'll work with you on shape, and,
we just need a gaping hole in the front of the car, if it's okay, Mort.
[all laughing]
[Raj] Ford Motor Company can be a little conservative,
and then you have this mad scientist to really push.
"What if we did that? What if we did this?"
And so you have this meld of crazy ideas and sanity
coming together in a really great balance.
17th of September, we have to be there with everybody else
with a representative engine,
basically so that they can set our BoP.
[all laugh]
It seemed like we had so much time last year.
Ford went to Le Mans for the first time in 1964.
And it took until their third year, '66, before they actually won it.
I want to go on record here that history says
it took three years. We're going this year,
first year, in the 50th anniversary, with a very high expectation.
I'm very confident that we have the tools to do it,
but you'd be an absolutely arrogant idiot
to sit here and say you're gonna win Le Mans, because it's, uh,
it's a tough race, and it can be very nasty.
So when I first heard about this race program,
my first reaction was,
I mean, I'm 48, and I was like, "So, so,
I mean, you want Le Mans winners.
I'm a Le Mans winner, I have to drive.
I'm still fit, I'm still fast."
And literally, I went into that mode because...
How could I not? And...
Then everyone talked me out of it.
But it was such a dynamic program,
and the thought of it was so exciting that,
who wouldn't want to be a part of it?
Fortunately we had a lot of interest
in race car drivers in wanting to drive this car.
So, a lot of applications came in.
Jointly between ourselves and Chip Ganassi,
we went through that process and really got the cream of the crop.
[interviewer] How did this whole racing thing start for you?
[chuckles] That's a great question. I...
When I was...
[clears throat]
When I was probably
three years old or four years old,
my father was in the asphalt paving business
and he paved a go-kart track.
And they guy didn't pay him for some reason,
so we ended up with three go-karts.
When you only weigh about 80 pounds, five horsepower is a lot.
That's how my motorsports career got started.
[Peter] Chip's an interesting guy. He was a racer himself.
Driver. He raced Indy cars.
He is the second most successful racing team in the US,
after Roger Penske.
Chip Ganassi hires the crew,
he hires the personnel, the management.
Everyone to oversee that the program works.
It's so much about the man and the machine,
and having to optimize both of those to be successful.
You could throw a lot of technology at race cars,
but at the end of the day, it's all about the gentleman
or the woman who sits behind the wheel and drives the car.
[Chip] Edsel wanted to have a meeting
and he said, "We'd like to work with your team."
I said, "Sure. You know, I mean, I'm all ears."
They took us down to the bowels of a building somewhere.
We walked down a hall and down another hall.
"Where the hell are they taking us?"
Sure enough, you know, we come around the corner,
and there's people beavering away on a car in the corner,
and you go, "What the hell is that?"
And that was it.
The way they concealed it was genius.
I mean, there was no way anyone was gonna know what was down there.
And the only people that went in there were, literally, a handful.
There were the designers and the top people in the company
that were involved in the project.
No one knew about it.
If you can use innovation
to build the ultimate Ford performance vehicle,
what would it be?
Well, here's an idea.
[audience applauding]
[cheering]
[Peter] When it came out, the impact was spectacular.
In this day and age, where you see spy photos of everything,
all the time, it was an amazing accomplishment
just to get it out as a surprise.
And then the car itself was fantastic.
[Tommy Kendall] Looking at all the details,
the way the wastegate exits through the tail light,
and the fact that there was actually plumbing in the buttresses,
all the stuff.
It is the absolute pinnacle of what can be done.
[Edsel] I don't think the GT's successful at all yet.
I don't think we know.
I think it's been well received by the media.
I think it's been well received by the enthusiasts,
based on the number of e-mails I get, um,
on "How do I sign up to buy one?"
But, you know, we haven't really launched the car.
The race car's been in testing,
so we don't really know whether it's successful yet.
I was thrilled strictly as a fan, to see Ford,
to hear that Ford intended to,
A, build a new version of the GT, and, B, go racing.
That said, I gotta confess
that the idea of winning Le Mans your first time out in a brand new car
is a real big challenge.
I wish them the best, but I think,
I think I would've been more confident if this were year two of the program
rather than year one.
You know, the first time you get in a prototype,
it's a nervous moment.
You can kind of tell, if you got the basics right.
Is this something you're gonna be able to work with or is this,
this gonna be a long haul.
[Larry] This is everything we've been working towards here, together,
Multimatic and Ford.
There's gonna be a couple of milestones.
One will be taking the checkered flag at Le Mans, 2016.
But another important one is the first day we ever run the racing car.
[Raj] It's an important day for any new production car or race car,
that first shakedown.
It's your first chance to figure out the character of the car.
If it's not good out of the box,
it's gonna be tough to make it good
and really tough to make it great.
[revving]
Today, it's just exciting to get the car actually on the track, right?
So expectations were not high.
It was mainly just to see the car move.
What we're seeing today though, is we're seeing a car that's almost ready to race.
[Raj] It's been running good, but more importantly, it feels right.
It's doing what the simulation said it would do.
Usually for a shakedown,
we're working out structural issues that are wrong,
you know, the car doesn't have the right balance
or we need to go back and rethink, and,
we're already beyond that step and talking about
tuning the car, things that usually happen
weeks or maybe even months later.
So, it's been a very good start.
We don't want to be overconfident.
We're almost, kind of, worried about how good it's going.
Working through our test program really quickly
and into development of the vehicle right away.
Those first initial tests, we just wanted to make sure we're handing off
a car that's ready to be race developed,
and providing that to Chip Ganassi,
and Chip providing, you know, the crew,
and the race car drivers and the operational side of that.
I think, for the engineering team, it's been great.
The development capability of all of our drivers
in telling us what they need out of the car.
Four cars, three drivers per car.
That means you need to find 12 great drivers.
[George Howard-Chappell] It's a very considered decision,
selecting the drivers.
Primarily, you're looking for speed and consistency.
And then, after that, you start to get into character
and whether or not the guy is a team player.
Chip has this amazing knack
to be able to look you in the eye and know if you're right for us.
[Chip] There are lots of drivers out there that are fast.
In endurance racing, where you share the car, you need to compromise.
There's always a little give and take with other drivers.
That's ultimately what made the decision for us.
It's a little bit unheard of, really, to staff up in such a way,
'cause almost every other race program
starts with one car and then goes to two, or whatever, and so,
to staff up for four cars on two continents
for full schedules, there's not really a precedent.
[Justin Bell] You have 12 of the top drivers in the world who are all,
by virtue of their success, by what made them successful,
very self-centered, egotistical, ambitious,
dog-eat-dog, mano-a-mano guys.
Westbrook is one of the most intensely competitive drivers I've ever met.
He's such a gentleman, but you see him get pissed off when something happens,
it makes for a great interview in the pits
'cause, you know, there's no holds barred.
Joey Hand, he's a fighter.
He's like an MMA fighter. You know, he's right there.
It's exciting for Marino.
His brother had outstanding success.
So first thing is, people go, "He got to drive because of his brother."
You don't do that in a program at this level.
But this is his biggest chance in his career, and he knows it.
But Dirk Muller, one of Nurburgring's top drivers,
has huge amounts of GT manufacturer experience.
There's nothing they can throw him on the radio or on the track
that he won't have seen before.
I love the fact they brought this group together.
Ford's history at Le Mans
is one of the greatest stories in motorsports of all time.
And to be at the return is beyond words.
[Scott Dixon] It's not too often programs come around like this.
I haven't even been to Le Mans, so,
it's for me,
there's gonna be a lot of eyes wide open,
mouth probably a little bit, too, occasionally,
just, you know, taking it all in.
[Stefan Mucke] You know, the history of Le Mans,
the first thing you think about is the Ford GTs.
Suddenly, you're being a part of that. It's like a dream come true.
For me, that's the first thing that came to mind.
I want to be part of that history.
There's nobody there that wouldn't send that thing right into the fence,
trying to win that race.
'Cause those are all top-notch, front-running
badasses in those cars right now.
You could almost overdo it.
To be handed the mantle to make this program
be successful and win, that's a big deal,
so Ganassi's assembled the kind of driving talent that, you know,
there are no excuses. They've been assembled for a reason.
They're professionals and they're there to win.
[Raj] Prior to Le Mans, we'll have six races, starting at Daytona.
All of those are gonna be real races,
but they're also, to some extent,
gonna be practice for Le Mans.
And certainly, our plan is get better every single race in leading up
to make sure we're ready as we can be for Le Mans.
I mean, look, we have an all-new car
we're having all-new drivers, who have no familiarity with those vehicles.
So, it's a very tall order. It's a very tall order.
Having said that, I expect us to win.
[reporter] Welcome, everyone, to Daytona. I'm Brian Till,
thrilled to be a part of another Rolex 24.
And that Ford GT has everyone talking.
[Tommy Kendall] The guy that's been dreaming about this for months
is Executive VP and Chief Technical Officer of Ford, Raj Nair.
Now, the battle back then was with Ferrari.
The crosstown guys are Corvette.
We all dream about storybook finishes,
who would you like to be banging doors with and head out by a nose,
Corvette or Ferrari, in 24 hours?
We're pretty focused on the win, so hopefully we don't focus too much time
on what the order behind us is, so,
we're just gonna focus on the front.
Nervous.
Really, yeah. Nervous, stressed. Stressed out a bit.
You know, everything that we need to do technically, we've done.
I'm very confident in that aspect.
But 24-hour endurance racing,
there's a bit of statistical luck associated with it.
I'm not gonna tell you we're not here to win.
You go racing to win, we all go racing to win,
but this really is all about going to Le Mans.
This is it for my career. I don't know what I'm gonna do after this.
Buy a winery somewhere, I don't know.
This is it. This is it. Going to Le Mans this year, that's it.
[commentator 1] They roll into the throttle.
We are green in Daytona, the Rolex 24!
And speaking of machines, there's the 66, Joey Hand.
He is now up into second, and is running down the 911 of Tandy.
[commentator 2] This is first. In second, a GTR Lam.
He's going to the outside.
He pulled the draft early and popped out,
runs alongside, he's gonna cross the stripe in the lead.
Can he hold it down into turn one?
Ford leads on their debut.
[cars revving]
Ford versus Chevrolet here on the high banks.
[commentator 1] This is gonna be an interesting one here. Take a look at that Ford.
Delayed him. That was close. Something's a problem.
[commentator 2] There's a problem. Yeah.
Certainly lost the drive there, off of that turn for Ryan Briscoe.
[indistinct conversations]
Carried out a bit of diagnostics,
found that it was one of the pneumatic belts
that controls the shifting in the gearbox.
Not something we've seen today in testing.
It's a shame it had to happen in the race.
[commentator 1] Another problem for one of the Ford GTs.
It is the 66.
This is not good. So, Joey is gonna pull it off the racing surface,
down to the inside. He's lost drive completely.
He's gonna have to rely on safety workers to get him back into the garage area.
[Raj] I hate losing. I don't like it.
To be honest, we expected the reliability to be better.
Some of the things that broke today are either not even new for the car,
or they're parts that are lot of the rest of the field are running as well,
but for some reason that broke on our car.
Some of the things we wouldn't see in normal testing.
You just have to race to see it.
That doesn't change the frustration of having that many issues.
[commentator 1] This car, since it's been back out and running, Cal,
has been running very, very quickly.
[commentator 2] It really has. I think Ryan Briscoe may have set the fastest lap of the race
in GTLM category, so he has shown pace.
And this 24-hour race will now become a test session for them,
if they're looking at the big picture of the championship.
I know they wanted success their first time out,
but there's a lot of other milestones
they're going to try and reach this year as well.
[Henry Ford III] We've got a good amount of time to go back
and take a look at what went right and what went wrong.
I think we'll come back, ready to go for Sebring.
We'll be even stronger than we are right now.
You can't have it both ways. You can't have something
really, really, really matter and have it be totally controlled.
That's just the nature of it.
But that's what makes this sport.
I mean, the highs are so high, but they're also not frequent, you know,
and so, you know, the best guys win
ten percent of the races, you know.
And so, to have everything line up
on the day, on the year, just doesn't happen very often.
We showed up at Daytona with higher hopes
and obviously left with our tail between our legs a little bit.
I think we were caught out by some,
by some issues that I would characterize as...
When you're trying to do things in six months
that other people have been working on for six years,
you say, "Oh, yeah, I forgot about that."
The general conversation after Daytona was,
you know, was, "Are they embarrassed?"
They tell you the program is good. They tell you the car is strong.
They tell you that they're gonna win a race at some point.
And then to not be able to make it
to the first two hours of the race because of a gearbox issue,
you're immediately like, "Are they embarrassed?
Were they lying? Have they had these issues?"
And so it raises some question marks for sure.
[Justin] Welcome to the pit lane at the one and only Sebring 12 hours.
This is spring break for racers,
and over 80,000 people have been here partying this weekend.
But right now it's time for those racers to rock.
With more on the action at the front of the grid is Jamie Howe.
The energy here at Sebring, Justin, has been felt all week long.
The nerves and the angst from not just the drivers, but also the crews,
has been evident.
Coming up to Daytona we had some issues.
We know we have them fixed.
But this Sebring. This is a whole new animal.
So I don't expect to see the issues that we fixed.
But it won't surprise me if we see some new issues.
Looks like we're going to get some rain today, and that's a good thing.
To go out and put the car through its paces in the rain.
So, today's gonna be interesting.
This is the kind of track,
we always say it's half the size and twice as hard,
so we'll see what happens.
[Justin] Now, onboard the 66, from Ford.
Running third right now, Dirk Muller.
A lot of people were surprised to see some of the problems they had
at the Rolex 24. I don't think we were.
Brand-new car, first race, and what they really want,
the prize that they want is Le Mans, coming up in June.
[thud]
When the airplane crashes, who do you blame?
The pilot.
That's the position you choose to put yourself in,
when you want to become a professional race car driver.
But sometimes it's not necessarily always fair.
You don't want to be that guy that writes that thing off.
You just don't want to be that guy.
It's only left.
I tried, I tried, I tried, but there was so much water, I was basically just boating,
and, yeah, it was unfortunate.
But the team came to me and said, "There was nothing you can do,"
which brings me up again because you feel you let your boys down.
[chuckles]
Dirk just got caught out in a lockup into turn one.
There was nothing he could do,
the car hydroplaned,
all the telemetry set, the brake pressure, everything was good,
but the car just hydroplaned and went into the tire wall.
Unfortunately, right after that is when they red flagged it for the conditions,
so we just missed that by a little bit,
and now the car's back here in the garage,
but during a red flag, you can't repair the vehicle.
Looks like it's gonna be a red flag for a while.
[Ashley Parlett] I spend most of my time on the NASCAR side of things,
and then I fly in on race day, or race weekend,
and help these guys. I help on the front end of these cars.
We wanna perform well. We wanna, you know,
make some history, and back up the program,
for Ford and for ourselves as fans,
I think all of us are trying to think more long term towards Le Mans.
Trying to make big gains on our reliability
and try to make the best of it.
I'm happy. I'm not like "thrilled, jumping up and down" happy.
All the issues we had at Daytona,
we didn't have any re-occurrence of those issues,
so, from that perspective, I think we're good.
Through these first few races, maybe we got our bad luck out of the way.
[commentator 1] Here we see that 66 car
that's been through the wars a little bit here today.
[commentator 2] Problems, it looked like, from both of these Ford GTs.
[Dave] I think we've been building momentum since Daytona.
We've been working on getting everything synced together,
getting the whole team, getting the car ready to be durable and run.
We want to show up at the track,
not have a lot of the extra-curricular activity
and just go race.
[revving]
With every race, we continue to improve
and get better, and get faster, and get more reliable.
And coming into Laguna, everybody felt positive
and cautiously optimistic about the weekend.
[commentator 1] Now see, the second of the Ford GTs,
Richard Westbrook down to the inside,
into the hairpin, what a move!
What a story this is, as they head into the month of June, into Le Mans.
[commentator 2] And he heads up into final turn.
And here it is! The first win! The Ford GT at Monterey!
Today, it came together.
[Jamie] From Daytona to Laguna Seca, you saw a program gel.
You saw them have problems mechanically.
You saw them have problems personally.
And then you saw them all come together and make it work.
[Dave] Not only was it the first, obviously, win for the GT,
but it was the biggest morale boost that you could have had
in a team that has been working
24 hours a day, seven days a week,
giving everything they got.
And what a validation of what's been going on.
[commentator 1] Two Fords getting ready for the big one.
This is more like the cars we were expecting to see from Ford
at the beginning of the season.
These are the Fords we've been looking for.
[Peter] Everyone's ready,
but then, the actual race happens,
and things you just can't predict.
It's racing, and everyone knows in racing,
things go wrong.
[tires screeching]
[crash]
[Raj] The best racer in the world loses more races than he wins.
You have to have a mentality of,
if you lose, you don't dwell on losing,
you dwell on why did you lose and how are you gonna fix that for the next race.
Sitting here, three days before the start of the race, I guess the biggest thing is,
where do we really stand with the pace of the car
and the endurance of the car? You know, I think that's everybody's question.
There's a lot of stuff going on.
I don't really like the week, I like the race.
You're just building up, and you want to get out on the track.
But Wednesday's a good day.
It's the start of first practice,
start of first qualifying.
[Jamie] You want to have the fastest lap at the end of the qualifying session,
so that you can start on pole for the 24 hours of Le Mans.
Ford kinda came in and surprised everybody.
They weren't spectacular in the test days in the week leading up to the race,
but they were spectacular in qualifying.
Ford had their four cars in the top five positions.
[Raj] Being one, two, four and five is a good start.
It was the first time we had run
the car in full out qualifying trim here, and,
I think it's fair to say, for all of us, the car
responded even better than we expected,
which is why there's a good mood here.
We got a lot of work to do, so it'll be important to stay focused.
[Chip] People are excited about where we qualified,
and that's a good thing, and it's exciting,
and it shows the potential of the car.
In reality,
in an endurance race, qualifying is not very important.
By Sunday afternoon, people will forget where everyone qualified.
[Justin Bell] They have a lofty expectation.
The perfect story is that they win this particular weekend in June.
No one will blame them for not winning.
Because it's too hard a feat to go to Le Mans in the first year.
They'll lead the race, for sure.
They'll lead the race for a lot of it, I think.
Their drivers are equally as fast as anybody,
and the car is super quick.
But the demands of the long run through
and not getting involved in accidents,
and what is the weather gonna be like, is tough.
[Kelly] When I came on in the first year of Corvette,
our three-year program
was, literally, just to be able to go there.
That first year, our car finished third,
and Ron's car finished fourth, and the team was ecstatic.
Never did anyone have a delusional thought
that we're going there to win the race.
It's much harder than anybody thinks, and,
you know, sometimes you can have all the...
all the components that you think are right in line,
but they've got to gel, they've got to blend,
and, you know, best of luck to them. For sure.
But it is no easy feat to go in there the first time after 50 years
and try to win that race.
Ford's data-bank of going to Le Mans is not rich.
Same for Ganassi.
Ganassi have no institutional knowledge of going to Le Mans.
I mean, everyone else is trying to win.
Corvette are probably the highest technology race team
outside McLaren.
Pratt & Miller do the guidance systems for tracking missiles in space.
So they can make a race car go around the track.
They've won there eight or ten times out of the last 15 years.
[Kelly] Porsche, man, they've got that place figured out.
They are the outright all-time winning brand.
And it is to this day what creates that aura
that makes Porsche what it is.
Ford? It's an unknown entity.
There's gonna be things that need to be figured out.
[Joey Hand] The tough thing here at Le Mans is the track's about 8.5 miles long,
so you could have rain on one end and dry on the other.
That's when it becomes very tricky because you have to stay on slick tires.
You can't use rains 'cause you'll burn up the rains on the dry part.
So, you have to just work your way through the wet part.
From a driver's standpoint, we just really would like to have one or the other.
It becomes really tricky when it goes back and forth.
But it is what it is.
[Kelly] Le Mans is a very treacherous place.
There was times where there's river crossings,
and you'd go over it three times and you wouldn't aquaplane,
and you'd hit it at the same angle the next time at 180 miles an hour
and the whole car would go... [rapid exhale]
Like that, and then you'd go, "Oh, you gotta breathe."
[commentator] The number 67 Ford GT,
one of four identical cars in this race,
being backed into its garage. Andrew Marriott, can you update?
[Andrew] Yeah, they've definitely got an engine problem with this.
They fired it up a couple of times, the rear deck is off.
So, that's what they're working on at the moment.
I'm pretty sure that this car won't take the start.
Driver sitting at the wheels,
there's about 15 people all clustered around him.
George Howard-Chappell, the team manager,
is directing operations here.
There is definitely something wrong with the motor.
[Andrew] Well, Harry, this is a crushing disappointment.
I thought it was a motor problem, but it seems to be the gearbox.
Yeah, gearbox issue. We lost gearbox pressure
on the reconnaissance lap, so, I put into the box, and,
the boys think they've found maybe a quick fix,
so we're gonna see if that works.
If not, I think we're gonna be in for slightly longer.
But we're gonna try this now and see how it goes.
[Jamie] You had one of the Fords starting from the garage.
The cars are so close. They're built exactly the same,
so, immediately, off the bat, you're like,
"Okay. So, are four cars gonna make the end of this race,
or are any cars gonna make the end of the race?" It was...
For 24 hours, you're questioning the survival of the program.
[Raj] Yeah, for that to happen even before the race starts,
on the one hand, you're thinking,
"Oh, boy. This is gonna be a long 24 hours."
On the other hand, I was thinking, "Well, I'm glad I brought four cars."
[chuckles]
[commentator] Back live, at Le Mans,
on a rainy French day, but the sun is poking through.
Crowd in the grandstand are folding their umbrellas,
and taking off their rain slickers, that's a good sign.
This is the first time in the 84 runnings of this race
that the 24 hours of Le Mans has started behind the safety car.
[commentator] Sixty cars are now on their way at Le Mans under green.
[Jamie] The fast structure in sports car racing is unique.
You have, essentially, four different races going on
on the racetrack at the same time.
So, you have the prototypes.
Those are things that manufacturers are developing
to be on their cars, maybe five-ten years down the road.
From a coverage standpoint,
you always follow the overall leader.
So, that's always, in sports car racing, going to be a prototype.
But recently, the GT categories have gained a lot more interest
because they are cars that people can relate to.
GTE pro cars look like cars that you would see driving down the street.
The competition level there is so intense.
[commentator 1] What a battle here in GTE pro,
between the Ferraris and the Fords, just like we saw 50 years ago.
[commentator 2] What a battle it is,
as one of the Ferraris jumps in front of the Ford GTs.
[Richard] Everywhere you go, someone reminds you about the history
of Ford in Le Mans.
So, you're permanently reminded of it,
and you can't really escape it. Not that I want to.
[Scott] For me, I think there's definitely some nerves.
You understand the big picture.
You understand the emphasis on the 50-year,
you know, there's a big story behind it.
But to expect to come here and win the first year is a very large expectation.
We try to think of everything as a team.
You try to think of every different scenario.
But a lot of us haven't been here, we haven't raced here before.
There are so many things that can take you out of it.
But I think, with having four cars,
you know, definitely,
you know, spreads that stress, and emotion a little bit.
[Joey] No matter what happens, we're gonna be part of history.
I'm gonna be one of those guys that, 50 years later,
made an attempt at this.
Hopefully, we can say that we won it, or podiumed or whatever,
but at least made an attempt at it.
[revving]
[speed reducing]
[thud]
[commentator] This is not where you want to be
at the end of the Mulsanne into Mulsanne Corner.
And for Marino Franchitti,
that's not where he wants to be right now.
He said on the radio, "I just locked 'em up, I couldn't get it unlocked."
He is not the first car that we have seen in there.
In fact, it's a very popular place to be today,
but it's an easy mistake to make at the end of the straightaway.
The good news for Ford is this is the car that had the problem early on.
It was already several laps down
and they did bring four of them, so...
[Raj] Right now, the 67 car is really out of contention.
The 68 car is doing really well.
It's trading first place back and forth with Ferrari right now, so,
we'll see what the night brings.
[commentator] Good time to make some driver changes, go ahead.
Put those guys in and let them run into the twilight,
and then when you put your next driver in
in a couple of stints from now, few stints from now,
they can get in in total darkness,
and they'll already be acclimated to it.
We saw the 68, Joey Hand, pitted from the lead,
Sebastien Bourdais has taken over that car.
Billy Johnson aboard the 66 now.
[Jamie] And you brought up the point too, Bryan, about having the same driver
in this transitional period from daylight to darkness.
The effect that the sun has on your eyes.
The different places that you,
that it bothers you around the race track, and having someone in there
as it's transitioning and not just in there right away.
[Mark] Beginning of the race was a little bit stressful
'cause number 67 had some gearbox problems.
But got back in, and they're all racing now.
And I can't wait till the sun goes down
because that's when it becomes really, really special.
[commentator] Beautiful overhead view, as the night falls
and the party begins in earnest.
[Jim] Racing at Le Mans, especially at night,
is very "out of body" experience.
Not that it's so pleasant, but you're doing it
and the visual input you're getting as a human
is very out of this world.
[Larry] The guys do get into a,
let's not call it, no, a trance state, that sounds crazy,
but guys get in a zone.
And, at night, especially.
And you get in a rhythm of driving that track,
and where, on occasion, you talk to your driver on the radio,
and they'll not answer you.
[Jim] It's like you're almost in a dream
because everything is so weird.
The lights, the weather,
the racing itself.
You know, you have to really trust your knowledge of the course,
because you're going into corners at 170-180 miles an hour,
and if you get it wrong, you're gonna get really hurt.
[Richard] I mean, it is dangerous. It is dangerous.
You can't get away from that.
It's, it's that sort of tunnel feeling when you go through Tertre Rouge,
down the long straight and then,
sometimes it can get a bit lonely out there, it's weird, it's...
you know, sometimes in the night you don't see any other cars
and you might do a radio check, just to check, you know,
your team is still there. [chuckles]
[Larry] We put repeaters out all round the track, radio repeaters.
Our telemetry can't deal with the size of that track,
so if you're just trying to take everything in and out from the pits,
the Mulsanne Corner's too far away.
So you got these repeaters out there and you do everything you can
to keep a radio contact with the driver.
[commentator 1] Back at Le Mans, lighter still in the skies overhead.
Partly cloudy skies, it looks like, hopefully, we are free of rain
in the run to the finish.
Now a little over nine hours away.
[Jamie] Overnight, Ford and Ferrari went back and forth.
And then, when the sun came up for the second day,
Ferrari was leading and Ford found themselves in second.
[tires flapping]
[commentator 1] Ferrari really came to life here,
once we got the darkness last night.
Hasn't let up since.
[commentator 2] Seems to me, just reading into the pattern
of the last six-eight hours, Tommy,
that the Ford seems to be a bit susceptible to the cooler conditions
and running behind the pace car, hasn't got a lot of tire temp in there.
The track conditions aren't that high either right now, so,
seems like the car's not quite coming to life as quickly
as the Ferrari has been all night.
Which kind of keep to our thesis
that it maybe is between compounds and would like a softer one right now
in these conditions. Now, if things get warmer,
does that put them right in their sweet spot,
and start to take the Ferrari out of theirs,
is maybe the question.
[commentator 1] If you base it on yesterday afternoon, you'd say so.
[commentator 1] Le Mans born and bred, Sebastien Bourdais,
trying to run down Toni Vilander in the class-leading Ferrari.
[commentator 2] He doesn't like being second. He's finished second three times overall,
running for Peugeot. [chuckles]
And the Frenchman, whose hometown is Le Mans,
wants that one position ahead of the Ferrari.
[Sebastien] For me, it's really tough
because I've been dominating this space so many times
and came short within the last few hours,
or something's gone wrong in the morning, or whatever,
and it's just one of those where you're kind of
dreading almost the moment where it's just gonna go haywire.
And you kind of almost start to feel that there might be a curse or something.
Last time I was in the car around from 6:00-9:00 am. or something like that,
the computer went bananas and now I had, like, no information.
Speedometer wasn't working anymore,
so I had to come through the pits at a guesstimated speed
'cause the display wasn't displaying anything anymore.
And I couldn't stop the car, and...
This is happening again.
[Raj] We're having trouble with the electronics in the car,
and so much of it goes through our steering wheel,
including when we come into the pits.
The drivers shut the engine off through the steering wheel,
and only then are we allowed to refuel the car.
So the rule says, engine must be off while we're refueling.
And when he came in,
the engine didn't shut off.
[engine revving]
-[Jamie] That's it. -[commentator 2] That is huge!
That's Dirk Muller, that's the second-place GTE Pro entry.
And they'll have to come to pit lane.
Right now, the gap, only 12.5 seconds in GTE Pro, but this is huge for Ford.
[Jamie] Having to serve a penalty at Le Mans means
that you have to exit the race track,
your race speed dropped to pit lane speed,
drive all the way down pit lane,
and then, get yourself back up to speed again in a safe manner.
It can cost you at least 30 seconds.
[slow dramatic music playing]
That's what separates racing from every other sport.
You can hit the worst shot in the history of golf,
and still win the Masters on one of your shots.
You can throw an absolutely atrocious pass and win the Super Bowl.
If you have a bad corner at Le Mans, you're not winning.
[commentator 1] We talk about mistakes that can take you out of this event.
[commentator 2] Did Ford just make a mistake on pit lane?
We'll have to see how that pans out.
You've got plenty of time left, you've had a problem,
over six hours to go,
and you come in, you take your medicine,
and now you focus forward on getting the job done again.
And you make up that distance.
You can't let that affect you mentally.
[Raj] The car's very easy on its tires, which we designed it that way,
but it also means it doesn't always get heat in the tires,
particularly on a cold night.
And as it warmed up, we knew the car was gonna get faster,
and so, we knew we still had a good chance of catching him,
but it was gonna require us to run flat-out from that point.
Dirk got that message, and he just ran lap after lap after lap
and cut into that lead, and I think by the time
he handed the car over he had cut almost a minute down to only 15 seconds or so.
[revving]
[commentator 1] Joey Hand, now behind the wheel of the 68,
as he hunts down Matteo Malucelli.
You ride on board with Joey right now,
and the car that you see in front is the bright, red number 82.
This is for the lead in GTE Pro at Le Mans.
[car revving]
[suspenseful music playing]
[commentator 1] As the weather continues to warm up throughout the day,
expect the Ford to get better and better and better,
and that is not good news for the Ferrari camp.
[Joey] This is right up my wheelhouse. This is where I live, right here.
Going to chase somebody down and pass him.
That point in the race, you're starting to wind down.
When you pass somebody for the lead,
that could be the pass.
If you have a car that can go run somebody down, pass him, and keep going,
they're gonna have to catch you, right?
There's not gonna be any freebies.
[commentator 1] The Ford accelerates, it seems, to about the same level.
But eventually the Ferrari gets to a plateau
and the Ford just seems to keep pulling.
[crew member] Ah, it's working.
[crew member] Get him, Joey!
-Yeah! -[team applauding]
[Edsel] Ford versus Ferrari.
It feels like it's 50 years ago.
Now, we'll have to wait until the end of the race,
but the cars look good, and, we're very optimistic.
[commentator 2] Ryan Briscoe, aboard the 69,
so, in the top three right now in GTE Pro.
There's Ford, Ferrari, and Ford.
So, the two U.S. based cars from Ford Chip Ganassi
in the top three.
Oh, and problems for the 82, Toni Vilander.
That is a big spin.
This is what's scary right now.
Hopefully, people are paying attention to the yellows. And Vilander
trying to get out of the way, and then back on track.
[commentator 1] This is also huge for Ford.
You can't give away
anything to competitors like this that you're running up against,
or Ford will say, "Thank you very much," and take that,
and capitalize on it big time.
Yeah, Ferrari's made that little spin and given us a little breather.
I think the race has switched a little bit.
Now it's gonna be a pure reliability match and,
the pace seems to be very evenly matched,
so, fingers crossed and bring it home right now.
Just kind of sit tight, let the guys figure it out.
Now, there's nothing I can do anymore. Just watch and,
and hope.
[Jamie] Before Vilander spun, it was just over five seconds,
it's now two minutes and five seconds that that cost them.
[commentator] Huge. And what it does is it moves
Toni Vilander back closer
to Ryan Briscoe in the 69, so it's like, one moment
you're trying to hang on to the lead, and the next moment,
you're trying to recover from the mistake and hang on to second place.
[commentator 1] Two hours to go.
To this point, Ford has been nearly flawless.
Dirk Muller going in.
Joey helping him out.
[Jaime] Muller should be in now until the checker.
Two hours left.
Joey gives him a pat, and says, "Have a good one, brother."
Meanwhile, the 82 in second, not about to give up the fight.
[revving]
[Dirk] I tried to go slow, to be honest, but I was making little mistakes.
I just told myself, "Do your normal pace."
I mean, if the car is not able to do ten more laps, I mean, then, that's it.
I had to be focused.
[commentator 1] Let's go to Andrew Marriott.
Well, Raj, I can't say you got a smile on your face,
'cause I'm sure your heart's in your mouth at the moment.
Yeah, we've got 37 minutes to go, and maybe I'll smile then.
Keep everything crossed, Raj.
Yeah, I've got all my fingers and toes crossed.
[chuckles] Thank you.
-[commentator 1] Sounded nervous, didn't he? -[commentator 1] Yeah, he did.
[Kelly] 2003, we had about a two-lap lead.
I came in for the last pit stop,
and the center lock nut that holds the wheel on,
it rolled underneath the car
sharp side up.
It's hard to tell that story because that's how I lost the race,
but the sharp edge punctured right through the carbon fiber body
into the oil pan, and all the oil came out of the car.
What it takes to get to Le Mans and to be in a winning car
in a winning position
and have it taken away from you and know
that will never happen. "I will never win Le Mans."
That was a tough pill, because I knew this was ours.
When I was really little, probably about four or five,
I remember my father coming home, and,
he was so excited to tell me about it
and what a great win it'd been for Ford.
And I remember thinking "I wish I'd been there."
[crescendo music playing]
Oh, my God!
[applauding]
[cheering]
Fifty years, baby!
It's like a dream come true, this weekend.
I mean, that's something you will never ever
dream about. I mean,
it's crazy.
I think we have achieved something big here today.
[corks pops out]
[cheering]
This is as good as it gets.
When we approved this program, we did it to come race here in Le Mans.
And I think we proved it was the right decision.
[Raj] We did what we came here to do.
We did it for our employees, and our families,
and everybody who loves Ford.
I hope they're proud of us.
[commentator 1] Sebastien Bourdais.
Sebastien's dad, Patrick, drove in this race.
When you race for so many people, and you feel that there's
kind of a greatness in the whole thing,
it's just something I've never experienced before.
And to be able to see how much it meant to the Ford Family,
it was just priceless.
[Edsel] I think back 50 years to my father, who I was there with,
and I think he would be extremely proud.
And he would have been even prouder the minute we passed that Ferrari.
What a moment. I mean, you know.
I have to sort of take a hold of myself. That was really incredible.
[cheering]
[Joey] Holy cow, we won Le Mans, you know?
You dream about this stuff,
you try and picture yourself in the moment.
It's crazy to think about the amount of people it took to get here.
[Bill Ford] I don't know how to feel yet, but I know it feels good.
It was about coming back to Le Mans
and showing that, we, as Ford Motor Company, had what it takes to win.
It took all of us to make this happen.
Every one of those people and every one of those garages
put the Ford GT across the finish line. That I do know.
This is what it means to be a team.
[slow music playing]
[instrumental music playing]