Ford To Unveil GT Race Car At 2015 24 Hours Of Le Mans: Report

The Ford Motor Company [NYSE:F] recently started public road trials of its new GT supercar which is expected to sail into showrooms late next year, as a 2017 model. However, Ford is also thought to be preparing a racing version that we previously reported will contest both the United SportsCar Championship and the World Endurance Championship in the respective GTLM and GTE classes designed for production-based cars.

While the Ford GT isn’t expected to start racing until the 2016 motorsport season, to coincide with a simplified GT racing format being introduced for major competitions including the USCC and WEC, we may get our first look at the racing version of the supercar as early as next month’s 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The information comes from Motorsport, which also reports that an initial shakedown test of the new race car took place earlier this month at the Calabogie Motorsports Park in Ontario, with Scott Maxwell of race car constructor Multimatic Motorsports the first to drive it. Multimatic is working closely with Ford on a number of its motorsport projects, including the new GT race car.