Mark Rushbrook, the global director of Ford Racing, met with the media ahead of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Detroit Sports Car Classic. Rushbrook answered a variety of questions, regarding the updated Mustang GT3 platform, returning as defending race winners and the team’s homecoming race in downtown Detroit.
WOULD YOU SAY DETROIT IS STILL AN EVENT YOU CIRCLE ON THE CALENDAR, DESPITE IT BEING A CHALLENGING CIRCUIT FOR THE MUSTANG GT3? “It is for us. We are America's Race Team, so we want to race throughout the country, of course, but it's important for our employees to have access to a race. To have something that's this close, they can come down here and watch our company race. It's important to us.”
HOW MOTIVATED IS THE TEAM BY THE MOTOR CITY RIVALRY? “We want to win every race we enter. They’re all important. The first pillar of Ford Racing is to win races and championships that matter. This is a race that matters. We want to win here. We want to win every single week, and we know we can't, but we come to every race with that as our focus.”
WHAT’S YOUR OVERALL ASSESSMENT SO FAR OF THE UPDATED MUSTANG GT3? “We're very happy with the evo. The Mustang GT3 did struggle the first year. We had some success in the second year. We had a lot of cars racing around the world. Here's a factory effort with Multimatic, and with HRT (Haupt Racing Team) and Proton Competition as customer teams. We have collected a lot of feedback from them, evolved all of our teams — together with Multimatic — to determine what are the important things to change for the evo. We're very happy with how those have turned out, with the success. If you look back a year ago, we got lapped at Laguna Seca. This year, we were able to win. The performance and feedback — I was at the 24 Hours of Nurburgring a few weeks ago — from HRT and those drivers was very good. Also, the WEC (World Endurance Championship) race at Spa with Proton. So, is every race car perfect? No. But we feel like we've addressed the opportunities that we had with the Mustang GT3, and we're really happy with how it’s performing.”
IS THE FACTORY MUSTANG GT3 PROGRAM A LONG TERM COMMITMENT, AND DOES THE IMSA GTD PRO PROGRAM FULFILL ALL OF THE GOALS OF THE PLATFORM? “We don't have timing in terms of the commitment of our programs, but racing in IMSA is very important for us. Does racing in GTD Pro fulfill all our goals? No, not necessarily. But it is the combination of having GT3, GT4 and our Mustang Challenge series. That has all worked very well for us.”
WHAT FEEDBACK HAVE YOU RECEIVED FROM THE IMSA GTD CUSTOMERS? “We're a family company. We want to have great teams and people racing our Mustangs. To have Myers Riley Motorsports adding a car this year has really been good, in addition to the Gradient Racing car, it's good to see that representation here — not only with the factory effort, but also customers.”
ARE YOU ACTIVELY SEEKING MORE CUSTOMERS IN OTHER REGIONS? “We sell Mustangs around the world, street cars, and we want to be racing Mustangs around the world. We're open to any team that is interested in any of those cars, whether it's GT3, GT4 or the Dark Horse R. We want to see more Mustangs on track, it's where they belong.”
IS THERE A PARTICULAR MARKET? “Specifically for GT3, we would like to see more cars in Australia. We had the HRT Ford Racing Mustang GT3 at the Bathurst 12 Hour. Well, it wasn’t 12 hours for us. But, we would love to see more Mustang GT3s at the 12-hour next year, as well as in the series there. We want to keep producing them, selling them and seeing them on track.”
THERE SEEMS TO BE MORE OF AN INTEREST FOR THE MUSTANG GT4 THAN GT3 IN AUSTRALIA. IS THERE A DEFINITIVE REASON? “You see more GT4 cars in total racing there in the series than GT3. Andrew Miedecke has done a great job in terms of building support over there and getting up to 10 Mustang GT4s, which is great to see that. I just like to see a few more GT3s over there.”
DO YOU PLAN TO HAVE A FACTORY SUPPORTED PROGRAM AT THE BATHURST 12 HOUR NEXT YEAR? “We're talking about all options right now with HRT. They're very interested in going back, and they did a great job. It was just unfortunate what happened. There was a lot of emphasis on that program this year. We also have a lot of our Supercars teams that are interested in a GT3 team there as well. There are a lot of opportunities and we'll see how those options play out.
IS TRIPLE EIGHT RACE ENGINEERING A POTENTIAL OPTION FOR THE BATHURST 12 HOUR? “Triple Eight… this is an incredible team. We're so happy to have them representing us as a homologation team in Supercars — great people there, with Jamie Wincup leading that team. Great drivers like Broc Feeney and Will Brown show what they’re capable of, not just in a Supercars, but maybe what they can turn a GT3 program into at Bathurst as well. It’s a very successful start in Supercars with Triple Eight and Ford, and there is an opportunity for them to take on a GT3 program as well.”
IF THE MUSTANG GT3 DID WELL AT LE MANS IN ITS FIRST YEAR, WHEN THE PROGRAM WAS LESS MATURE, THEN DO YOU EXPECT BIGGER RESULTS THIS YEAR? “We go to every race with the intent to win. The cars ran strong, and in the WEC race at Spa a couple weeks ago. We had a few unfortunate incidents where we didn't get the finishing results. We know that the cars are good. We know that the team and the drivers are good, so we're going into Le Mans with high expectations.”
ARE THERE ANY DEVELOPMENTS WITH FORD RACING’S PARTICIPATION IN IMSA PROTOTYPE RACING? “Nothing until 2028 at the earliest. For 2027, we're committed to a full season in WEC. That's all we're gonna be able to do. For 2028, it's wide open. There would be a lot of sense, for sure — the 24 Hours of Daytona would be of interest. Even if it's a one-off race or an opportunity to do the endurance. But again, we're so focused on development right now with engines running on dyno and the testing and shakedown that we need to do. We need to start the 2027 WEC season, see where we are, and then see what makes sense for 2028 and beyond.”
