2016 Le Mans LMGTE Winning Ford GT

[u/PowwowPuffer]

2016 PMGTE car and their oiginal 1966 overall winnier

[u/DummyThicccThrowaway]

That's the '67 winner right? I thought the '66 winner was a black car

[u/PttyBlue44 → u/DummyThicccThrowaway]

Yes. 67 winner is a MKIV (red). 66 was a MKII (black). 68-69 were the Gulf liveried GT40/Mirages

[u/Valaen003]

Can’t forget the Vette while you’re there.

[u/andrew4668 → u/Valaen003]

Cant forget the jim Clark lotus, and the 1 of 6 bugatti *

[u/Valaen003 → u/andrew4668]

Of course! Not sure if I have the Bugatti? I might.

[u/lightsisqueen]

Henry Ford Museum rocks.

[u/cabrelbeuk]

The sandbagger itself ! It really is a good looking car.

[u/afito → u/cabrelbeuk]

sandbagging for a car that shouldn't even have been allowed in the first place if not for Ford demanding 400 different special treatments and then they complained about the position light

unironically an all time low point for the sport that "sportsmanship"

[u/darlingort → u/cabrelbeuk]

How exactly were they sandbagging? What did they do?

[u/TheBattlemanCZ → u/darlingort]

In 2016 during practice for LeMans, Ford was running like around realy slow like way of pace, biched to ACO for better BOP for qualy, But then sudenly for qualy they "found" like 6-7 seconds out of nowhere. In 2017 they pulled the same shit again and got penalized for it.

All of this together with the fact that the new GT was basicaly homologation special, build just for the GT GTE to be legal (Ford wasn't even selling it back when they started racing their car) means that a lots of people look down on their return to Lemans for playing kinda dirty

[u/Competitive-Ad-498 → u/TheBattlemanCZ]

In practice they ran 3:56s. And suddenly in qualification 3:51s. The ACO did something unprecedented, a BoP change after qualification. They still ran in the race 3:51s at will.

While the Ferrari delivered their 488GTB's to their customers in 2015, Ford delivered the first GT to their customer in December 2016. That means that the RACE CAR was being produced earlier than the production car. In an interview Chip Ganassi said that the race and production car were designed at the same time. And the FIA/ACO regulation were followed, literately.

Thing is that there is something like the spirit of racing. Ford did not have any interest in that. There was no such thing as a bad way of winning, only winning. The car had one purpose: win Le Mans. They did. And in such a way that every time this race or car is being mentioned, sandbagging and the lack of sportsmanship will be discussed.

[u/LilBirdBrick → u/TheBattlemanCZ]

Not to mention the late race tactics to get Risi penalized so they could get their 1-2-3 finish.

[u/lmp9002002 → u/LilBirdBrick]

As time goes on this feels worse and worse.

[u/Balazs321 → u/LilBirdBrick]

Wait what happened there?

[u/LilBirdBrick → u/Balazs321]

So the race very quickly became a Ford vs Ferrari race, as the turbo charged cars that year just had a huge advantage. The 2 AF Corse cars that year were pretty useless though, so it became the 1 privateer Risi car vs all the factory Fords. Risi kept up with them and battled for the lead most of the race. However, towards the end of the race their light behind the number panel (or was it the leader lights?) on one side of their went out, and members from Ford allegedly threaten Risi about it and wanted them to give up the fight, Risi didn't budge, so Ford protested and Risi got a black and orange flag.

[u/TheBattlemanCZ → u/LilBirdBrick]

Also in that same race, one of the Fords (I think it was 66, but i am not sure) also got black and orange for non working number panel and Ford was mad that FIA didn't penalize Risi for the same thing

[u/Balazs321 → u/LilBirdBrick]

Thanks for the reply, not the most sportmanslike thing to do i guess...

[u/BadPronunciation → u/LilBirdBrick]

that's so stupid. That is some peak F1-tier pettiness

[u/SportscarPoster → u/TheBattlemanCZ]

Don't forget too the odd gear ratios used at Spa that year (possibly the Le Mans ratios) and they then had the audacity to complain the they had no pace. I will always remember that car only changing into sixth gear on the Kemmel Straight, when all the other GTEs were in sixth before Eau Rouge.

[u/3MATX]

Sandbagging express

[u/V8-Turbo-Hybrid]

Just wonder where are other GT GTEs after Ford ended GT program. Just only know Ben Keating having one in his garage.

[u/GradSchoolDismal429 → u/V8-Turbo-Hybrid]

The Ford GT were apparently too expensive to make sense for a GTE-am program. Ben Keating ran that car because he wants to. Other people just picked the Ferrari / Porsche / Aston which has much better economics.

[u/inkblowout4]

Man I wish the Ford GT was still in WEC. It was always such a nice-looking car.

[u/DatGuy8927]

Beautiful machine, the liveries were bad though. Only the throwback ones were good.

[u/Valaen003 → u/DatGuy8927]

The motorcraft and keatings Wynn car were the best. Ford/Multimatic liveries are always meh, as we can see with the proton mustangs.

[u/Scary_Structure992]

🛐🛐🛐🛐 let's bow gang