Ford's latest Mustang is set to go racing all over the globe, with the company on Friday revealing a new GT3 customer race car that's confirmed for both North America's IMSA SportsCar Championship and the global FIA World Endurance Championship. Entry in the latter will see the Mustang GT3 compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The Mustang GT3 is derived from the track-focused Mustang Dark Horse, and will be ready to race from the 2024 season. Ford will field the car in the SportsCar Championship's GT3 class starting next year, and customer team Proton Competition will enter it in the World Endurance Championship's GTE class, also from next year. GTE is the same class in which Ford took a class victory at the 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans, with a race car based on its GT supercar.
Some of the cars the Mustang GT3 will compete against will include race cars based on the likes of the Aston Martin Vantage, Chevrolet Corvette, Mercedes-Benz AMG GT, and Porsche 911.
Ford has developed the Mustang GT3 with motorsports partners Multimatic and M-Sport. Multimatic is the same company that builds the GT supercar, as well as the more recent Bronco DR racer, and will also build the Mustang GT3. M-Sport in recent years has worked closely with Ford in rally competition, and will be responsible for building the Mustang GT3's engine, in this case a bespoke 5.4-liter version of the regular 5.0-liter V-8. It's possible the engine will also end up in a road-going Mustang GT3 hinted at by Ford CEO Jim Farley in March.
The Mustang GT3 race car also features unequal-length double-wishbone suspension front and rear, a rear-mounted transaxle gearbox, carbon-fiber body panels, and an aero package developed to meet GT3 rules.
Its first race will be the 2024 24 Hours of Daytona next January. The race is the opening round of the SportsCar Championship.
Joey Hand, one of the class-winning drivers in Ford's 2016 Le Mans campaign, is serving as a test and development driver for the program.
Versions of the latest Mustang are competing across a wide spectrum of racing series, including NASCAR, Australia's Supercars series, and soon also GT3 competition. A Mustang GT4 race car is also coming to further expand the car's eligibility in global competition. Ford is also known to be working on a Mustang Dark Horse R race car that could potentially form the basis of a new one-make series.
