Henry Ford understood failure. After all, his first few forays in to auto making ended in failure. But he was also not a man to give up easily. He had a vision for what success could look like. All he needed was a catalyst to bring that vision to life. And on October 10th, 1901, nearly 125 years ago, the catalyst he needed spluttered into life and went on to make history. That catalyst was a race car called Sweepstakes. And through innovation and clever thinking, Henry Ford attracted investors for a new car company called Ford Motor Company. Failure had breed innovation which had delivered success and the rest, as they say, is history. 

That ethos remains to this day in the newly formed Ford Racing team. Sure, we set out to win every race we compete in, and it hurts like hell when we don’t achieve that goal. But the truth is, we learn as much or even more from our failures. Without them, innovation is harder to come by. Success can breed complacency, and complacency has no role in Ford Racing!  Instead, we are driven by an intense desire to innovate and compete in order to make ourselves better and in turn, make our cars and trucks better. 

An example of that is in off-road racing. The intense heat and brutal landscape of any off-road race tests man and machine to their limits. It is a place where failure is commonplace and where even the toughest components find their final resting place in the desert sand of Baja or the Arabian Peninsula. But by its very nature, it is the perfect place for Ford Racing to take our toughest vehicles like Raptor to prove to ourselves and our customers that we have what it takes to win. 

So, as we enter our 125th year, you could be forgiven for thinking that this is a time for reflection and to look back on a glorious racing history. But I am reminded of the words of Henry Ford himself who once said, ‘History is more or less bunk. It is tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damm is the history we make today.’ 

So here’s to the future – and what a future it is shaping up to be. Ford’s return to F1 in 2026, our return to the top level of sportscar racing in 2027 at Le Mans, our assault on Dakar and our attempts to conquer Pikes Peak. We will continue Henry Ford’s legacy in the only way we know how to – with passion, innovation and a relentless desire to win.