Car and Driver: Why did you choose to launch in the GTE class rather than with a hybrid LMP car that might win the event outright?
-Raj Nair: The cars in this class are far more representative of what we’re offering to the public, so the road-car GT is very close to the race-car GT. It’s a great opportunity for us to showcase the innovations in the vehicles that we’re offering on the showroom floor.
-Mark Fields: Our approach is that every single customer that buys one of our cars should be able to get some part of the innovation that we have in the GT.
-C/D: Why Le Mans and the World Endurance Championship?
-MF: Globally, this is the most popular sports-car endurance race in the world. What better way to take our newest and most innovative product and race it—and be able to telegraph that to the world? And it’s a link to our past. It’s not something that we’re coming to for the first time. I think that’s important for race fans around the world, the fact that we have a heritage in racing and we have a heritage here. And we’re updating it for today’s times.
-C/D: And the GT was designed from the start to race?
-MF: Yes, Mr. Nair was quite insistent on that. So yes, from the get-go.
-RN: From the beginning, we knew we were racing it, yeah. The CFD work, the engine work, having the engine running in Daytona prototypes, the lightweight, and many more things. That was all aimed at the track.
-C/D: Clearly you think the GT is going to be competitive. How high are your expectations for next year?
-RN: It’s racing. We’ve got some really great competitors, competitors who have had a lot of years of great success. We recognize that challenge, but we’ve put a lot of our best people and our best efforts behind it, so we expect to be competitive with this vehicle.
-MF: We always race to win—we also realize it’s our first year.
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C/D: So this is a program that will continue long-term?
-MF: For now we’re committed to next year’s race and we have great expectations. That’s all we’re saying now.
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