Ford Planning “Pool of Drivers” for Mustang GT3 Customers

Ford is planning to develop a “pool of drivers” that can be deployed to customer teams running the new Ford Mustang GT3 according to the manufacturer’s global motorsports director Mark Rushbrook.

Ford Performance and Multimatic on Thursday announced their full-season driver pairings for a factory IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship program in the GTD Pro class.

While that two-car operation represents the only works team effort with the car, all the other Mustang GT3s that will be produced are destined for sale to customer teams.

Ford intends to support those teams with a selection of factory drivers, in a similar approach to most other GT3 manufacturers.

Fellow GT3 newcomer, Chevrolet, which is introducing the Corvette Z06 GT3.R next year in competition with the Mustang, also previously stated plans to have a factory pool.

“This first year will be more limited in terms of customer teams, but for 2025 it looks like we can sell a ton of these cars,” Rushbrook told Sportscar365.

“Our plan is to have a pool of drivers including these four, plus more.

“We’ll assign and loan those drivers out as makes sense, with schedules and trying to place them with the right teams.”

When asked how many more factory GT drivers Ford will need to sign, Rushbrook said: “I don’t know. It depends on how many cars we end up selling.”

Ford’s full-season factory drivers for next year’s WeatherTech Championship GTD Pro campaign are Joey Hand, Dirk Mueller, Harry Tincknell and Mike Rockenfeller.

They will be joined by additional Michelin Endurance Cup drivers who will be announced later.

Proton Competition is aiming to run two Mustang GT3s in the FIA World Endurance Championship and will need two Gold or Platinum-rated drivers for that operation.

“Will any of the WEC guys show up here on this side of the Atlantic for the longer races? Yes,” said Multimatic’s Vice President of Special Vehicle Operations Larry Holt.

“But we haven’t announced who those guys are yet. The other way around is difficult because you’re only allowed one [Pro] in each [WEC] entry. Once the music stops and the all the chairs are there, there are still some guys standing up.”

Italian outfit Dinamic GT has purchased two Fords to run in Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS including the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa.

Rushbrook said that Dinamic could “potentially” compete for overall honors in the Pro class where there are no driver rating restrictions. The team has a history of competing in Pro with Porsche using drivers contracted to the German manufacturer.

He added that having a customer in Fanatec GT is important because the SRO Motorsports Group landscape is where Ford expects to see most of its GT3 cars running.

“What Stephane Ratel has done, and what SRO has done, is an incredible part of why sports car racing is so strong in total,” said Rushbrook.

“IMSA and World Endurance Championship are very strong, but what SRO does just complements everything. That is important for us.

“The Ford GT program was all about factory. But our goal, and what we love about this program, is that we can race as a factory here [in GTD Pro] but we can sell cars and have customers racing them all around the world.

“We’ll sell more cars to [race in] SRO than we will anywhere else.”

Signing Rockenfeller a “No-Brainer” After Test

Of the announced Ford GTD Pro drivers, Rockenfeller is the only new addition with no prior experience driving for the Blue Oval.

Hand, Mueller and Tincknell were all previously part of the Ford GT program that ran from 2016 to 2019.

Ford agreed on terms with Rockenfeller shortly after the 2010 24 Hours of Le Mans winner completed a test in the Mustang GT3 at Sebring in June.

“For a program like this, we had a lot of interest and a lot of drivers calling me, Larry [Holt], Pascal [Zurlinden], Kevin [Groot],” said Rushbrook.

“We had a pretty long list of drivers to look at, and we sat down together, Ford and Multimatic, and said, ‘What’s on our list and what’s important for us when we go to decide?’

“We got through a lot of them and didn’t test them all. Mike was one that came to the top, so we did actually test him. He got in the car and put the lap times down.

“But more importantly, the feedback that he gave and the way he was able to interact with other drivers and engineers.

“If they’re the fastest drivers and they don’t get along, that’s not going to work for us. Adding Mike in was a no-brainer once we got him in the car.”