Every time we fire up our dyno cell in Dearborn, the room holds its breath. Then the engine catches, the numbers climb, and for a few minutes, we're not in Michigan anymore.
We're at Le Mans.
Watch La Sarthe on the dyno on Ford Racing YouTube.
That's what you're watching in our latest film. Our 5.4-litre Coyote-based V8 Hypercar engine, running a full simulated lap of the Circuit de la Sarthe — right here on the dyno. Every gear change, every braking zone into Mulsanne, every full-throttle charge towards the Ford Chicane, all modelled in real time.
The engine doesn’t know the difference, but your ear can tell when it is at wide open throttle and rockets past 9000 rpm. That's what a world-class virtual proving ground buys you, and this engine work has been going on behind the scenes for months now.
We don't wait for the racetrack to start learning. We can't afford to.
Build the engine, interrogate it, and let the data tell us where the real work is. It's a lesson that Ford Racing has carried over from its various other motorsport programs into endurance racing.
We are also taking learnings from the first program to ever do this: our 1960s Le Mans program with the GT40. In fact, the test chamber we are using for the Hypercar sits just yards from where we did the original work on the GT40 more than 60 years ago.
What we learned then informs what we do today, and what we do today will inform the future. That is what makes this program so exciting.
However, an engine is only half the job.
That's why this film also takes you south, to our Technology Centre in North Carolina, where our Hypercar drivers are testing our buck and feeling the car before they've turned a single wheel on track.
Every detail gets refined because when our drivers reach Le Mans, there can be no surprises.
We're days from our first test in France, but every dyno session and every hour in that buck is essential for our preparation.
We intend to arrive ready. And ready we will be.
Ford Racing's Hypercar program continues development ahead of its return to the top class of the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2027.
Christian Hertrich is Powertrain Chief Engineer at Ford Racing.
