Photo of the day: a Ford GT lapping in the rain
Ahead of 2017's endurance championship, the Ford GT’s been testing at a wet Monza
It’s less than a fortnight until World Endurance Championship racing returns. WEC, if you need a reminder, is the race series that includes the Le Mans 24 Hours, perhaps the most glamorous long-distance race in the world.
Last year, Ford grabbed many of the Le Mans headlines. While a Porsche 919 hybrid took the chequered flag for the overall race win, a Ford GT claimed victory in the GTE Pro class lower down the grid, replicating the famous 1966 result that first put the Blue Oval’s supercar on the map.
But it wasn’t a one-time visit to Le Mans to mark the 50th anniversary of that original triumph. Nope. The new-age GT will be racing for several seasons yet, in line with the production cars rolling out of the factory. Cars like the one Matt LeBlanc’s had an exclusive drive in for TG TV.
And here’s our first glimpse of the subtly different 2017 race car in action, as it took to Monza for WEC’s Prologue testing weekend. Ford GTs exchanged fastest lap times with Porsche GTE Pro 911s over a weekend of very mixed weather, which is displayed dramatically here as the GT blasts through Saturday night’s rain.
Probably a jolly good rehearsal for WEC’s first round at Silverstone on April 16. Yep, Silverstone in April. If you’re going, take a good coat…
Image: Drew Gibson
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