Ford is aiming to conduct the first test of its LMDh car in the third quarter of this year, ahead of its debut in the World Endurance Championship’s Hypercar class in 2027.
In a call with select media outlets on Monday, Ford LMDh chief Dan Sayers said that development of the American marque’s first prototype sportscar since the C100 is progressing as planned.
Multiple teams across the UK, US and France are working on the as-yet-unnamed racer, which is based on an ORECA LMP2 chassis and powered by a 5.4-litre naturally-aspirated V8 engine.
Sayers said the first test car is expected to be ready within the next three to four months, putting Ford on course for an initial track outing at the start of Q3.
“We are exactly where I expected to be,” Sayers said. “There are always going to be problems, but it has gone quite well [so far]. We’re starting to build the test car engine fairly soon. So all of that [work] is under way. The homologation process has already started, so that’s on schedule.
“We expect to be building the car in the next three or four months. As soon as that’s done, we’ll roll it out in the south of France. We will spend a week just on the rollout and debugging. Then we will start our first track test in the same month, so at the beginning of Q3.”
Sayers revealed that Ford’s entire test programme is fully mapped out, and the team is working hard to ensure it remains on schedule.
Dan Sayers, Ford Hypercar Program Manager
Photo by: Ford Performance
“The whole of the test plan is booked and confirmed, so we’re pushing like hell to make sure we are ready, because if we miss one of those tests, you have this huge knock-on [effect],” he admitted.
“All of that is planned. At the moment, there’s nothing to suggest we won’t make that. A huge amount of effort is going in everywhere to make sure we stick to that.”
Sayers revealed that initial track running for its LMDh prototype will take place in Europe, before the programme moves to the United States for more rigorous testing.
Further, Ford plans to expand its efforts with a second test car, mirroring the approach taken by other manufacturers in Hypercar.
“We certainly will get two cars out there at a point,” Sayers said. “For the first few months, we will focus on Europe. We will definitely do a 30-hour test in Europe before we then go to America to finish off the testing.
“The plan is to do another 30-hour test, probably early in the new year. Some of those tracks in America, like Sebring, are great for durability, so we plan to visit there to do an endurance run as well. The difficulty is with [striking a balance between] a finite amount of time and a sensible mileage that we need.
“We’re trying to stage the tests with a good couple of weeks in between to allow us to do development analysis and code updates. So, it’s getting that compromise between enough time to move forward, but not too long such that we get very few tests.
“So, we will focus on Europe, then we’ll move to America and then we’ll go to the first race in Qatar in not very long.”
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– The Autosport.com Team
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