Ford Racing confirmed its return to the top class of the World Endurance Championship in January 2025. The goal is the overall win at Le Mans in 2027, Ford's first attempt at outright victory at La Sarthe since 1969.
Through 2025, Ford built the foundations of the programme.
Oreca was named as chassis partner at Le Mans in June, confirming the car would be an LMDh.
At the same time, Dan Sayers was appointed programme manager, joining from Red Bull Ford Powertrains.
Then, in September, Ford made a less expected decision. The Hypercar programme would be run in-house by Ford Racing, rather than handed to a specialist operation like Cadillac's partner JOTA or BMW's WRT.
In early March 2026, Ford named three senior engineers: Jean-Philippe Sarrazin, Leena Gade and Grant Clarke.
Jean-Philippe Sarrazin
Sarrazin joins from Porsche Penske Motorsport, where he was the race engineer on the #6 Porsche 963 that won the 2024 WEC drivers' title.
Porsche closed its factory Hypercar programme at the Bahrain finale in November 2025. Sarrazin was on the pit wall for the team's final race. Four months later he was at Ford.
His last race before joining was at the front of a Hypercar grid, in a car built to the same LMDh regulations Ford's own car will use.
Leena Gade
Gade won the 24 Hours of Le Mans three times as the race engineer for Audi Sport Team Joest, in 2011, 2012 and 2014. She was the first woman to engineer an overall Le Mans winner. The 2012 success also delivered Audi the inaugural WEC drivers' and manufacturers' titles.
She joined Multimatic in 2018 and has worked on Ford's Mustang GT3 programme in recent seasons. Her move to the Hypercar effort is not a signing from outside; she was already working on Ford cars.
Grant Clarke
Clarke joins as trackside engineering manager, leading the engineering team at the circuit. He comes from NEOM McLaren Electric Racing in Formula E, where he was lead race engineer. Earlier in his career, he had WEC experience with TF Sport and Prodrive.
The rest of the programme
Alongside the engineers, Ford has named its engine and its first three drivers.
The engine, confirmed in January 2026, is a 5.4-litre naturally-aspirated V8 built in-house with support from Red Bull Ford Powertrains.
The drivers are Mike Rockenfeller, Sebastian Priaulx and Logan Sargeant.
What Ford does not yet have is a finished car.
Sayers has told Motorsport.com the first test car should be ready in the third quarter of 2026, which leaves roughly twelve months between the first shakedown and the start of the 2027 Le Mans 24 Hours.
Ford will not be the only new manufacturer arriving in 2027. McLaren joins the Hypercar class at the same time, in a category that already fields Alpine, Aston Martin, BMW, Cadillac, Ferrari, Genesis, Peugeot and Toyota.
