#ford GT40 Mk I

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1966 Ford GT40 Mk I

Photo credit: Mecum

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[byjmcv]

FORZA HORIZON 5 1964 FORD GT40 Mk I

FORZA HORIZON 5 1964 FORD GT40 Mk I Windows 11 Pro 23H2 XBOX CLOUD - EDGE

BYJMCV 2024/04

[wheelsgoroundincircles]

Ford GT40

The Ford GT40 is one of the most iconic cars in automotive history, renowned for its dominance in endurance racing during the 1960s. Here's the full story:

Origins:

In the early 1960s, Henry Ford II, known as "Hank the Deuce," was determined to beat Ferrari at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the world's oldest active sports car race. Enzo Ferrari had rebuffed Ford's attempt to buy the Italian company, which led to Ford's determination to defeat Ferrari on the racetrack.

Development:

Ford tasked its newly acquired subsidiary, Ford Advanced Vehicles, with developing a car capable of winning Le Mans. The project was named GT (for Grand Touring) with the intention of building 100 road cars to homologate it for racing. Carroll Shelby, who had been involved in motorsports and had success with the Shelby Cobra, was brought in to manage the racing program.

GT40 Mark I:

The first iteration of the GT40, known as the Mark I, debuted in 1964. It was powered by a 4.7-liter V8 engine and showed promise but faced reliability issues.

GT40 Mark II:

Ford made significant improvements with the Mark II, featuring a 7.0-liter V8 engine, and refined aerodynamics. In 1966, Ford achieved its goal when the GT40 Mark II, driven by Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon, won the 24 Hours of Le Mans, marking the first time an American car had won the prestigious race outright.

GT40 Mark III:

In 1967, Ford introduced the GT40 Mark III, a road-going version of the race car. It featured a more luxurious interior and was intended for homologation purposes.

Continued Success:

The GT40 went on to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans three more times consecutively from 1966 to 1969, solidifying its place in motorsport history. Notably, the 1967 race saw an all-American victory with the GT40 Mk IV driven by Dan Gurney and A.J. Foyt.

Legacy:

The Ford GT40's dominance in endurance racing and its rivalry with Ferrari became legendary. It remains an icon of American automotive engineering and a symbol of Ford's determination to compete at the highest level of motorsport.

Modern Resurrection:

In the 2000s, Ford resurrected the GT nameplate with the Ford GT, a modern supercar inspired by the original GT40. The new Ford GT debuted in 2004 and again in 2017, paying homage to its predecessor while showcasing cutting-edge technology and performance.

[coimbrabertone]

Team Orders: The Dirty Little Secret of Motorsports

In most team sports, your entire team either loses, wins, or draws. There isn't a state where some of your team wins and some of your team loses. Whilst in individual sports, it's you versus everyone else, so your job is pretty simple. Motorsports, however, exists in an awkward middle ground: you are both part of a team, and you are competing for individual glory.

This can meltdown in one of two ways. The first is when individual glory prevails over playing the team game, such as the Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost crash at Suzuka 1989, or the various Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg collisions, most prominently at Spain 2016. Then there's the other way: when the team prevails over individual glory.

The team orders.

This last weekend we saw team orders come into play as Oscar Piastri was leading the Hungarian Grand Prix, but McLaren pit second placed Lando Norris early to cover off any potential threat from Lewis Hamilton. This was an odd move as Lewis wasn't really all that close to either McLaren at this point, and the undercut gave Lando a massive advantage over Oscar.

Oscar Piastri pits two laps later and comes out in second. The gap widens to about six seconds, and McLaren spends the next chunk of the race trying to tell Lando to be a good teammate and let Oscar by in the end. McLaren started with light requests, then told Lando to remember the team, and eventually just started guilt-tripping Lando into giving up second.

Lando eventually lifted off on the straight, let Oscar pass, and Piastri took his first Formula One Grand Prix victory.

Now, Lando got the pole and was clearly the faster car at the end of the race, however, Piastri got the lead off the start, pulled away, and was in the lead when McLaren decided to pit Lando first. Really, I think the biggest problem is that McLaren decided to pit Lando first despite the fact that everyone could see that fresh tyres were a massive advantage at the Hungaroring.

Still, it's clear that Lando didn't particularly want to move over, and it's clear that McLaren was pretty desperate to get him to let Oscar by.

The big lift off the straight necessary to let Piastri by is also somewhat of a statement, Lando was making a point over how choreographed this switch was.

So, the team made the strategy call that flipped the order and made the drivers flip it back despite the fact that Norris didn't particularly seem to want to.

Where does that leave this case in comparison to a few other famous cases of team orders?

Well, one of the most famous examples is from the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans, where - as seen in the movie Ford vs. Ferrari - where Ken Miles and Denny Hulme's #1 Shelby American Ford GT40 Mk. II was leading from the #2 sister car of Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon. In third - albeit twelve laps down - was another GT40 Mk. II, the #5 Holman & Moody car of Ronnie Bucknum and Dick Hutcherson. Ford man Leo Beebe ordered the three cars to finish in a dead heat for the photo opportunity.

Miles in the #1 car slowed down to let the #2 catch up, and Ford got their photo finish. The only problem was that McLaren and Amon finished a nose ahead, on top of the traditional part of the story where they started a further two spots behind the #1 and therefore traversed a greater distance.

The commonalities between this and Hungary 2024? Well, the lead car was ordered to slow down and that led to the car in second place taking the victory.

Then in the late 1990s into the 2000s, we got a slew of controversial team orders in Formula One, which eventually culminated in team orders getting banned.

First comes the 1997 European Grand Prix at Jerez, where, after the championship deciding crash between Jacques Villeneuve and Michael Schumacher, Schumacher is out of the race, out of the championship hunt, and will soon be disqualified from the 1997 season altogether, while Jacques is limping his car home, currently in the lead.

However, Williams then tells Jacques to let the McLarens of Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard through. Jacques thus finished third, narrowly ahead of fourth placed Gerhard Berger. Now, it made sense for Jacques to let the faster McLarens through since he only needed a single point to match Michael and then beat him on countback, or two to beat him outright. First was worth 10, third was still worth 4.

The thing is that Williams and McLaren actually had an arrangement where, if McLaren helped Williams - or at least didn't get in their way - then Williams would help McLaren, so it wasn't just a matter of Jacques protecting his car, he was ordered to let the McLarens by.

To add fuel to the fire, McLaren had used team orders in that very race already, as Hakkinen started ahead at Jerez only to wind up behind Coulthard on pit strategy, something McLaren "fixed" with team orders, in a case very similar to Hungary 2024.

Also similar was the very next race, Australia 1998, where Hakkinen had some sort of radio mishap - accounts vary from him mishearing something to someone outright tapping McLaren's comms to call Mika in - went through the pits and emerged behind Coulthard. Ron Dennis again used team orders to correct an issue that came out of pit lane.

Also in 1998 was the Jordans at Spa, which I talked about in last week's blogpost. There, in treacherous wet conditions, Jordan ordered Ralf Schumacher to stop catching teammate Damon Hill and remain in second place, conserving the team's first 1-2 finish on the stormy day.

Now that I've established Williams, McLaren, and Jordan were all doing this stuff too, let's get to the name synonymous with team orders in this period: Ferrari.

First was a rather understandable case: the 1999 German Grand Prix, where Mika Salo - filling in for Michael Schumacher who broke his legs at the British Grand Prix earlier that year - was ordered to let Eddie Irvine by for the win. Mika Salo was just the fill in driver, Eddie Irvine was competing for the championship, and championship rival Mika Hakkinen crashed out after a tyre failure, so this was a ten-point gain for Irvine. All of that made sense.

What made less sense was Austria 2002, where coming onto the start-finish straight for the final time, Rubens Barrichello lifted off big time to let Michael by and allowed Schumacher to take his fifth win of the season - fourth in a row - in just the sixth race of the season. Yeah...it was not particularly necessary...and the fans let Ferrari know by booing the podium.

Even Michael didn't seem proud of it, as he let Rubens stand on the top step of the podium in his place.

The similarity to Hungary 2024? The big show of a lift to let the teammate past, though this was more dramatic given Rubens did it quite literally on the run to the line.

In the United States Grand Prix at Indianapolis at the end of that season, Schumacher would lift off and let Rubens finish alongside, which actually led to Rubens winning the race by 0.011 seconds. Schumacher and Ferrari have maintained that this was a botched photo finish, much like Le Mans 1966, but there has been a persistent theory that Michael was returning the favor for Austria earlier that season.

All of these incidents in quick succession and the growing controversy around them led to the FIA, after the 2002 season, banning the use of team orders.

So why were team orders allowed to happen in Hungary 2024?

Well, it turns out enforcing a ban on team orders is hard.

The crashgate scandal in 2008 - where Renault ordered Nelson Piquet Jr. to crash deliberately as Fernando Alonso was coming to the pits to bring out the safety car - was revealed in the summer of 2009.

Then in the 2010 German Grand Prix, we have the famous "Felipe, Fernando is faster than you, confirm you understood the message" case, where Massa was ordered to let Fernando by for the championship.

These two incidents led to the FIA conceding that they weren't actually able to police team orders, so as much as they would ban Briatore and Symonds on the Renault front and fine Ferrari, neither race result was overturned. The team orders ban was gone after the end of 2010, having only lasted eight seasons.

So team orders are now legal again, and the case of Multi-21 from the 2013 Malaysian Grand Prix is the most famous example. Sebastian Vettel was ordered to remain behind Mark Webber, refused, and overtook the Australian to take the win. For what it's worth, Mark Webber is Oscar Piastri's manager. Multi-814 doesn't quite have the same ring to it though.

Disregarding team orders and taking the win is something a lot of people have suggested that Lando should've done, that yielding proves he doesn't have the ruthless edge to be a championship caliber driver.

On the other hand, McLaren's team radio to Lando insisted that Lando and Oscar have helped each other countless times and they'll need each other's help to win the championship. Multi-21 was in Vettel and Webber's last year as teammates and there's always been the suggestion that Vettel refusing to yield is part of the reason why Mark retired.

Lando and Oscar are both young and quick, they can both be with McLaren for a long time provided Zak Brown can keep his lust for young drivers in check, so maybe Lando yielding to Oscar was the right call.

Time will tell if giving the position in the end was enough, or if all the will-he-or-won't-he itself will ensure Piastri won't be as trusting of Norris in the future.

Always in motion the future is.

[sucede-es]

Ford GT40 Mk I Press Car

El Ford GT40 original dejó una huella en el escenario mundial como ningún otro automóvil estadounidense antes o desde entonces.

Basado en el Lola Mk 6 GT, Ford brindaría el respaldo necesario para convertir el automóvil en una fuerza en las carreras de resistencia, arrebatando el trueno a Ferrari justo antes de que comenzara la Era de Porsche.

Se construyeron solo 105 GT40 a lo largo de cuatro generaciones y seis años, y aún menos de esos se construyeron como automóviles de carretera.

El chasis P/1069 es uno de esos pocos, encargado por Ford USA, exhibido en el Salón del Automóvil de Ginebra de 1967 y luego utilizado por Ford UK como coche de prensa. Pintado de Verde Borneo Metálico para su aparición en Ginebra, el automóvil se vendió a un coleccionista privado en 1971 y se pintó de amarillo. En 2007, un nuevo propietario llevó el automóvil a las carreras en clases históricas, antes de que fuera restaurado a su configuración y color de automóvil de carretera. Ahora se ofrece a la venta privada, con un valor estimado en millones.

[chantichanti321]

Del Ford GT40 se fabrican entre 1964 y 1969 un total de 107 unidades organizadas en series: MK I, MK II, MK III y MK IV. Luego vendrán las innumerables réplicas y la reedición del siglo XXI, bautizada por los de Dearborn como Ford GT y la velocida del GT40 es  velocidad máxima de 320 km/h y medias por encima de los 200 km/h el motor que tiene es  EcoBoost de 3,5 litros y configuración V6 el precio es de Las unidades copias de taller tienen un precio de partida de 305.000 euros, incluidos impuestos. para mi es uno de los mejores carros del mundo.

[automotiveamerican]

THE REAL KEN MILES FORD GT40 - @Petersen Automotive Museum

Today, we’re with Steve Volk at the Shelby American Museum talking about the Le Mans Winning Ken Miles @ford GT40! In September 1965, two new Mk. I chassis, P/1015 and its sister car, P/1016, were flown from FAV in Slough, England, to Shelby American to be built up there as team cars for the 1966 Daytona race. The cars arrived in basic form and Shelby’s men added the 485-hp 427 engines and T44…

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Ford GT40 Mk I

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me in a nutshell

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1967 Ford GT40 Mk I johnwickart collage

[itracing]

Ford GT40 (Mk I)

Image by Maurice van Gestel || IG

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[diabolus1exmachina]

Ford Cortina Mk. II Savage (1969). 

The Ford Cortina Savage was the incarnation of racing driver Jeff Uren and produced by his own company, Race Proven Limited, who took a Ford Cortina saloon and ‘shoehorned’ the Essex V6 three litre engine into the vehicle. Jeff Uren had raced for and managed the Ford Works team before joining the Willment race team, which fielded Ford Falcons, Galaxies, Cobras, GT40s, and, most famously, the humble Cortina Mk. I. Uren was responsible for the development of the Willment Sprint GT Mk. I Cortina. The gearbox was taken from the Ford Corsair 2000E. Weber carburettor, uprated brakes, electric cooling fan, differential, dampers, additional fuel tank and exhaust were all modifications together with the dashboard, alloy wheels and badges made for this unique motor vehicle. The first car to have the Savage treatment (by dropping in a Ford 3.0 litre Essex V6 engine and re-engineering the suspension) was the Mk. II Cortina; this then progressed to Mk. IIIs, Mk. IVs and even a one-off Mk. V Cortina. 

[carspottingtheworld]

This was the keystone of Icons of the Road for me.  This was an absolutely incredible show, and I didn’t even take pictures of every car there.  To recap, the exciting cars of the show for me were... Bugatti EB110 Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse Original 427 Cobra Original Shelby GT350R 2005 Ford GT Ford GT40 Mk I Porsche 959 Porsche Carrera GT Porsche 918 Spyder BMW M1 BMW 507 BMW Z8 DeTomaso Mangusta DeTomaso Pantera Ferrari F40 Ferrari 458 Speciale Ferrari 512 BBi Ferrari 288 GTO Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona Lamborghini Murcielago LP650-4 Roadster Lamborghini Countach LP400 Periscopio Mercedes C11 Mercedes SLR McLaren Maserati Tipo 61 Birdcage Spyker C8 Laviolette Mosler MT900S Jaguar C Type Jaguar XJ220 McLaren M8A Can-Am

But the real headliner for me was this stunning McLaren F1.  This car is chassis #001, and was the third F1 built.  I saw my first F1 early in 2015, also in silver, and then this F1 at Icons of the Road in August of the same year.  I caught a very quick glimpse of an F1 LM a few years later, but I haven’t had a proper chance to drool over an F1 since this car.

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https://www.simsdom.com/downloads/285231/1969-ford-gt40-mk-i-sims4