Top Car

January 2016 |TOPCAR.CO.ZA 77``````without reference to the ot her. In fact, we’re going togo out on a limb here and suggest that to find the lasttime a supercar and a racing car were this closely alignedyou’d have to goback to the heady days of the Porsch e911 GT1 and the Me rcedes CLK GTR. The GT isn’tbeing positioned to compete at that level – those carswere gunning for outright victory, while the GT LMrace r is entered in the GTE Pro class, several rungsbelow today’s front-running, hybrid-enhanced LMP1protot ypes – yet it’s clear that Ford is taking the processexce ptionally seriously.‘There is very little lag between ro ad-car an d race -cardevelopment,’ Pericak confirms. ‘It’s very challenging todo both at the same time, but it’s a huge benefit in thatyou’re able to design big things into the ba se car that willhelp you with racing. The program was conceived fromthe start as a ro ad car, but once we decided we were goingracing they were running in parallel.’Given this insigh t it do esn’t take a genius to spot theprioritisation: the compact, teardro p-shaped cabin, soremarkably reminiscent of current LMP1 cars ; theextensive use of carbon fibre, and the choice of Canadianrace -car engineering firm and carbon fibre expertsMultimatic as development and assemblypartner. Thenthere’s the engine’s prev ious life winning IMSAendurance races , which it’s beendoing for the last twoyears already – including the 2014 Daytona 24 hours andSebr ing 12 hours. ‘We’re obviously looking for the bestpower-to-weigh t ratio and the smallest frontal area,’ saysPericak. ‘Every curve, every line, everything on this carhas beenput on there for performance, and especiallyCarbon dash board is part of thestructural tub. Imagine it! Theyhad to sign off the dashfirst