Top Car

January 2016 |TOPCAR.CO.ZA 77

without reference to the ot her. In fact, we’re going to

go out on a limb here and suggest that to find the last

time a supercar and a racing car were this closely aligned

you’d have to goback to the heady days of the Porsch e

911 GT1 and the Me rcedes CLK GTR. The GT isn’t

being positioned to compete at that level – those cars

were gunning for outright victory, while the GT LM

race r is entered in the GTE Pro class, several rungs

below today’s front-running, hybrid-enhanced LMP1

protot ypes – yet it’s clear that Ford is taking the process

exce ptionally seriously.

‘There is very little lag between ro ad-car an d race -car

development,’ Pericak confirms. ‘It’s very challenging to

do both at the same time, but it’s a huge benefit in that

you’re able to design big things into the ba se car that will

help you with racing. The program was conceived from

the start as a ro ad car, but once we decided we were going

racing they were running in parallel.’

Given this insigh t it do esn’t take a genius to spot the

prioritisation: the compact, teardro p-shaped cabin, so

remarkably reminiscent of current LMP1 cars ; the

extensive use of carbon fibre, and the choice of Canadian

race -car engineering firm and carbon fibre experts

Multimatic as development and assemblypartner. Then

there’s the engine’s prev ious life winning IMSA

endurance races , which it’s beendoing for the last two

years already – including the 2014 Daytona 24 hours and

Sebr ing 12 hours. ‘We’re obviously looking for the best

power-to-weigh t ratio and the smallest frontal area,’ says

Pericak. ‘Every curve, every line, everything on this car

has beenput on there for performance, and especially

Carbon dash board is part of the
structural tub. Imagine it! They
had to sign off the dashfirst