(engine roaring)
(serious instrumental music)
(engine roaring)
- [Interviewer] So Edsel,
where does this story begin?
- That's the hardest question
I've ever been asked.
I think this really starts
on October 10, 1901,
(upbeat jazz music)
when Henry Ford won a car race
with a vehicle called Sweepstakes.
It set the path for Ford Motor Company.
- Ford was born on a racetrack.
It really is how we began as a company
and with my great grandfather.
And so ever since then, we've raced.
- The GT 40 program was our first venture
into European-style road racing
against European cars.
We wanted to go racing in Europe
to beat the Europeans, especially Ferrari.
(intense music)
- In the early '60s, Enzo Ferrari realized
that he needed some corporate help
if he wanted his company
to continue to grow,
and if he wanted to compete
with the uppermost levels of Motorsport.
And at the same time,
Ford Motor Company realized
they wanted to change their image.
They wanted to sort of appeal
to the younger buyers,
and they thought racing
might be a good way to do that.
So emissaries from each company
sort of found the other,
and they started negotiating.
Ford sent Don Frey, who was very high up
in the hierarchy, to negotiate
directly with Enzo Ferrari.
Things went well for a while,
and then they didn't go so well.
And Ferrari left Ford at the altar.
Henry Ford II, who was
then running the company,
he was really peeved
that he had essentially
gotten the finger from Enzo Ferrari,
and that's when he told Don Fry, you know,
"If we can't join them,
we'll go beat them."
(upbeat music)
- Back then, the pinnacle of
road racing around the world
was going to be Le Mans.
- [Announcer] Le Mans is a
quiet, little French community
most of the year until the month of June,
when nearly half a
million racing enthusiasts
transform it into the motor
racing capital of the world.
- That was about as
ambitious as you could get
as an American company, to go
to Europe and race at Le Mans,
to beat Ferrari, who was
dominant at that time,
actually had just won
so many years in a row.
- [Announcer] Ferrari of Italy
has won the race seven times
out of the last eight.
No American car has ever won.
- My father wanted to beat Ferrari,
and it didn't make any
difference what it cost.
(lively music)
- He was really serious
about winning the race.
We had all the budget,
and all the facilities
and materials that we needed.
Anything that we thought that we needed
was right there.
- The first Ford GT was actually
a modified Lola Coup,
with a Ford Racing body on it.
It was an elegant, beautiful car.
The problem is, at speed,
the air would lift the front wheels.
They got to Le Mans in '64,
Phil Hill set the fastest lap of the race,
but he said it's almost undriveable.
I think the first car caught fire
in the third hour or something.
It was a huge bust.
- We didn't win that first year,
but we learned a lot.
- We came back in '65,
it was a little better.
They showed up at Daytona,
and had some success.
And then by '66 they were ready.
- [Announcer] Ford challenged last year
with the GT 40 Mark I,
now they are here with a faster Mark II.
Henry Ford, his wife, and young son Edsel,
have arrived to see
the investment pay off.
(upbeat music)
(engines roaring)
In the first lap,
the track was wet from a light rain.
Still, the Americans' aggressive strategy
is clear from the start.
Take the lead early,
set a fast and punishing pace,
and outlast the competition.
All afternoon, all night, all morning,
the Ford GTs were still in the lead.
And here they come for the finish!
First place, the number two Ford GT.
Second place, the number one Ford GT.
Third place, the number five Ford GT.
An authoritative win
for the American challengers.
- The iconic one, two,
three finish at Le Mans
was perhaps, of all the great moments,
that was probably the defining moment
in Ford's race history.
- My history at Le Mans,
as a kid started when
I was four months old,
the first time I went.
And then, pretty much uninterrupted
until I was about 18.
I've had five top threes at Le Mans,
I've raced there 11 times,
this is my 36th time to Le Mans.
So a lot of my life has been spent there,
and a lot of exposure to big teams.
There's a genuine excitement
that the Ford GT is in there.
There are fans there
that will have remembered
the cars in 1966.
The sad part about
modern sports car racing
is that no one really goes.
You feel that you're doing it for TV,
not for the crowd.
Go to Le Mans, you feel
like you're doing it
for the real people.
For drivers that have
never been there before,
it must seem like a zoo.
- Down here at the drivers' parade
it's a tradition on the Friday of Le Mans,
and we are here to go around the town,
the fans have come out in their droves,
100,000 people just over there,
and we'll drive around for half an hour.
We've got 8,000 wristbands and flags
to throw out to them,
and it's just a chance for them
to see the drivers up close
before the big race tomorrow.
It's a unique experience,
and you feel like a bit of a rock star,
because thousands of
fans screaming your name
and everything like that,
it's an incredible experience.
(inspiring music)
- This is where I started
driving when I was 15 years old,
and I know a lot of people around.
(crowd cheering)
They saw me grow from the new kid in town,
trying to make it, you know,
to kind of an accomplished
race car driver,
a decent professional
who's making a living
from his passion, which was all I could
really hope for in the beginning.
(crowd cheering)
- Le Mans is Le Mans,
it's the Superbowl of sports car racing.
To come back on the 50th anniversary,
of course we would love to do it again,
I think there's more
competition this year,
if I'm allowed to say that.
There's more manufacturers,
we have Aston, Ferrari,
Porsche, Corvette, us,
there are three other Fords racing,
so the competition has
never, ever been stronger,
particularly in this category.
Whoever wins this year
is gonna really, really deserve it.
- I'm someone that loves
the history of the sport,
Ford won this race four times in a row
between '66 and '69.
To be coming back with the new Ford GT
with four incredible cars
is very exciting for everybody.
I'm very excited to get on with it
and get racing on Saturday,
because that's what really matters.
What I became a sports car driver for
was to race here at Le Mans.
And I can't imagine what it would be like
to win this thing.
- So, you know what?
I'm not here really to
give you a pep talk,
you guys are all professionals.
You know why we're here.
You know what we're here to do.
But I think there is one thing
that I will remind you of, maybe.
All of you have probably raced
in events that were more important to you,
but there's one thing
that I guarantee you,
you will never race
again for as many people
as we're racing for this weekend.
Ford's raced a lot, you know that.
We've won at the Monaco Grand Prix,
we've won Formula One championships,
we've won Indy 500.
50 years ago, we raced here.
We swept the podium,
and it meant a lot,
because it meant we took
on the world, and we won.
So I'm gonna be totally unfair,
and remind you that unfortunately,
there's only one chance
to celebrate a 50th anniversary.
The only thing they're
asking of us this weekend
is to go like hell.
So let's do that.
(audience applauding)
I can't remember the time
that I actually fell in
love with motor racing.
It's strange, because
there's no one in my family
that is into cars, it wasn't something
my dad introduced me into.
From as long as I can remember,
it's something that
I've been in love with.
- This is really Raj's baby.
He absolutely has been the
driving force behind this,
and the one who had the vision
for all of this to happen.
And so all we're doing
is executing on his vision.
- We've always been thinking
about building another Ford GT.
The 50th anniversary of the win in '66
was coming up,
and we felt we really have to do something
to honor that win.
- Raj and Mark came to me
and said, "we've got something
"we think you're gonna like."
- In the car business, dates count.
And anniversaries count.
We have a 50th anniversary
of Le Mans coming up.
Why don't we do another GT?
- When you talk Ford GT,
that's a higher calling
within the company.
That's an icon that
lives on 50 years later.
They're still talking about it.
They're still talking about it in France.
- Well, one thing's for sure,
when we decided to do the GT,
the birthday party was gonna happen,
the 50th anniversary, one way or another.
And the time was ticking.
We've got a lot to prove
to not only the world,
but even the people inside our company.
And we intend to do that.
(serious instrumental music)
- The rules in GT racing
are these are production-based race cars,
and so you have to have a production car
that you're building from.
But we're still developing
the production car.
So we got agreement
from all the other manufacturers
to allow us to race
as long as we delivered the production car
in a customer's hands
by the end of the year.
(engine roaring)
- Race car development and
production car development
almost start at opposite ends.
Race car, we start from the tire,
and we optimize everything,
what does the tire want.
Production car, we start from the driver,
and then we work everything
downstream from the driver
to make it feel right.
It's a lot of engineering
to do simultaneously,
having to go through all the legal things
you need to go through,
and the durability things
you need to go through
for a street car, and
then be thinking ahead
about what would be ideal on the track.
(inspirational music)
- People were identified
within the company
with areas of expertise,
engine, suspension
technology, aerodynamics.
It launched this internal
Skunk Works within Ford.
It was a completely confidential project.
- It was a decision on
the part of the team,
to build it not so much
as a dedicated super car,
but almost as a laboratory
for what is possible
for the rest of the Ford line.
To me that was a very
interesting approach,
but there are difficulties,
'cause you do that,
can you really be competitive?
Can we really take an eco-boost engine
and make it a competitive race engine?
- It's a combination of direct injection,
turbocharging, variable cam timing.
So you can make a
tremendous amount of power.
But you can get really great
fuel economy out of them too,
which actually is an advantage,
quite an advantage for a race engine.
- Who would have thought
that we'd be putting a
V6 engine in a super car?
So that's a bold statement,
when we said we were going to do that.
Carbon fiber, which has
had tremendous application
in racing already, to get the weight out,
to get the strength up,
the Ford GT is almost
entirely carbon fiber.
We're learning a lot from that,
and we're working with our partners
to figure out how to make it lower cost
so that we can then expand
the use of carbon fiber
to the rest of the Ford lineup.
We get to use racing
to push the boundaries
for everyday passenger cars
that are in people's driveways.
- First and one is moving,
it's actually mobile,
it's very restricted calibration rods,
I think I've explained to
you, it's only 3,000 RPMs,
shifts are going to be really delayed,
I mean, it's going to be rough.
- Treating 3,000 at the red line?
- It is.
- You're coming in with an
all-new car, an all-new team.
We're still learning the car,
we're still developing the car,
and things will happen
that we didn't anticipate,
whether it's tactics,
whether it's endurance,
whether it's technical issues,
whether it's do you have
enough outright speed,
you don't know any of that
until you get out on the track.
(engine roaring)
The most fun I've had
doing 20 miles an hour.
(audience laughing)
Did you start eating without us?
- [Ford Employee] All the pizza's gone!
- What do you mean the pizza's gone?
- [Ford Employee] There's pizza and subs.
- We don't have cooling
problems with these engines.
In fact, we kind of have the opposite,
we have trouble keeping temperature
in them when it's cold outside.
Upon teardown, we did not see
any other signs of distress,
the engine looked actually
really good for 20 hours,
and we would say with
pretty good confidence
that that engine would
pass the durability test.
- So we've got a race-proven engine in 16.
- Yes we do.
And Larry's already started bolting it in.
- We're working with Larry Holt,
mastermind for Multimatic,
and Multimatic brings to it expertise
that we don't have at Ford.
They're great racers, and they know
how to put race cars together
probably better than anybody.
When it comes to the road car,
and a ground-up road car,
I think that there's been
a bit of a learning curve there
on exactly what it takes,
but again, we're partners in this.
- Starting to look at a lot of work
on the front underwing,
where we found we're hugely powerful
but very sensitive.
We're trying to move
the center of pressure
on the underwing
so it's not so pitch sensitive.
We like it a lot, but it does impinge
on the front of your car, guys.
But we'll work with you on shape,
and we just need a gaping hole
in the front of the car if it's okay.
(group laughing)
- You know, Ford Motor Company
can be a little bit conservative,
and then you have this mad scientist
to really push, you know,
what if we did that?
What if we did this?
So you have this meld of
crazy ideas and sanity
coming together in a really great balance.
- 17th of September we have to be there
with everybody else, with
a representative engine,
basically so that they can set our BoP.
(group laughing)
- Seemed like we had
so much time last year.
- Ford went to Le Mans for
the first time in 1964.
It took until their third year,
'66 before they actually won it.
You know, I wanna go on record here
that history says it took three years,
we're going this year, first year,
in the 50th anniversary,
with a very high expectation.
I'm very confident that we
have the tools to do it,
but you'd be an absolutely arrogant idiot
to sit here and say
you're gonna win Le Mans,
because it's a tough race,
and it can be very nasty.
- So when I first heard
about this race program,
my first reaction was,
I mean, I'm 48, and I was like,
so, you want Le Mans winners,
I'm a Le Mans winner, I have to drive.
I'm still fit, I'm still fast.
And literally, I went into that mode.
Because how could I not?
And then everyone talked me out of it.
But it was such a dynamic program,
and the thought of it was so exciting,
that who wouldn't want to be a part of it?
- Fortunately we had a lot of interest
in race car drivers
and wanting to drive this car.
So a lot of applications came in.
Jointly between ourselves and Chip Ganassi
We went through that process,
and really got the cream of the crop.
- [Interviewer] How did
this whole racing thing
start for you?
- That's a great question.
When I was probably three years old
or four years old,
my father was in the
asphalt paving business,
and he paved a go-kart track,
and the guy didn't pay
him for some reason,
so we ended up with three go-karts.
When you only weighed about 80 pounds,
five horsepower is a lot.
That's how my Motorsports
career got started.
- You know, Chip's an interesting guy.
He was a racer,
so driver, he raced Indy cars.
He is the second most successful
racing team in the U.S.
after Roger Penske.
- Chip Ganassi hires the crew,
he hires the personnel, the management,
everyone to oversee
that the program works.
- It's so much about
the man and the machine,
and having to optimize both of those
to be successful.
- You could throw a lot of technology
at race cars, but at the end of the day,
it's all about the gentleman
or the woman who sits behind the wheel
and drives the car.
- Edsel wanted to have a meeting,
and said "we'd like to
work with your team."
I said sure, I'm all ears.
(intense instrumental music)
They took us down to the bowels
of the building somewhere.
We walked down a hall
and down another hall,
where the hell are they taking us?
Sure enough, you know,
we come around the corner
and there are people
beavering away on a car
with a corner, you go
what the hell is that?
And that was it.
- The way they concealed it was genius.
I mean, there was no way
anyone was gonna know
what was down there.
And the only people that went in there
were literally a handful.
There were the designers,
and then the top people in the company
that were involved in the project.
(gentle music)
No one knew about it.
- If you could use innovation to build
the ultimate Ford performance vehicle,
what would it be?
Well here's an idea.
(audience applauding)
(audience cheering)
- When it came out, the
impact was spectacular.
In this day and age,
where you see spy photos of
everything, all the time,
it was an amazing accomplishment
just to get it out as a surprise.
And then the car itself is fantastic.
- Looking at all the details,
the way the wastegate exits
through the taillight,
the fact that there's actually plumbing
in the buttresses, all the stuff,
it is the absolute pinnacle
of what can be done.
- Well, I don't think the
GT's successful at all yet.
I don't think we know.
I think it's been well
received by the media,
I think it's been well
received by the enthusiasts,
based on the number of emails I get
on how do I sign up to buy one,
but we haven't really launched the car.
The race car has been testing,
so we really don't know
whether it's successful yet.
- I was thrilled, strictly as a fan,
to see Ford, to hear
that Ford intended to A,
build a new version of the GT,
and B go racing.
That said, I've got to confess,
the idea of winning Le Mans
your first time out in a brand-new car
is a real big challenge.
I wish them the best,
but I think I would
have been more confident
if this were year two of the
program rather than year one.
(intense music)
- The first time you get in a prototype,
it's a nervous moment.
You can kind of tell
if you've got the basics right.
Is this something you're
gonna be able to work with,
or is this gonna be a long haul?
- This is everything
we've been working towards
here together, Multimatic and Ford.
There's going to be a
couple of milestones.
One'll be taking the
checkered flag at Le Man 2016,
but another important one is the first day
we ever run the racing car.
- [Raj] That's an important day
for any new-production car or race car,
that first shakedown.
It's your first chance to figure out
the character of the car.
If it's not good out of the box,
it's going to be tough to make it good,
and really tough to make it great.
(engine revving)
(engine roaring)
(engine roars)
(serious music)
(engine roaring)
- Today, it's just exciting to get the car
actually on the track, right?
So expectations were not high,
it was mainly just to see the car move,
What we're seeing today though
is we're seeing a car
that's almost ready to race.
(engine roaring)
- It's been running good,
but more importantly it feels right.
It's doing what the
simulation said it would do.
Usually for a shakedown,
we're working out structural
issues that are wrong,
that the car doesn't
have the right balance,
or we need to go back and rethink,
and we're already beyond that step
and talking about tuning the car,
things that usually happen weeks
or maybe even months later.
So it's been a very good start.
We don't want to be overconfident,
So we're almost kind of worried
about how good it's going.
(engine revving)
(intense music)
We're working through our
test program really quickly,
and into development of
the vehicle right away.
Those first initial tests,
we just want to make sure
we're handing off a car
that's ready to be race-developed.
And providing that to Chip Ganassi,
and Chip providing the crew,
and the race car drivers,
and the operational side of that.
I think for an engineering
team it's been great.
The development capability
of all of our drivers
and telling us what they
need out of the car.
Four cars, three drivers per car,
that means you need to
find 12 great drivers.
- It's a very considered decision,
selecting the drivers.
Primarily, you're looking
for speed and consistency,
and then after that you
start to get into character
and whether or not the
guy's a team player.
- Chip has this amazing knack
to be able to look you right in the eye
and know if you're right for us.
- There are lots of drivers
out there that are fast.
In endurance racing,
where you share the car,
you need to compromise.
There's always a little
give-and-take with other drivers.
That's ultimately how I've
made the decision for us.
- It's a little bit unheard of,
really to staff up in such a way.
'Cause almost every other race program
starts with one car, then
goes to two, or whatever.
And so to staff up for four cars
on two continents for full schedules,
there's not really a precedent.
- You have 12 of the
top drivers in the world
who are all, by virtue of their success,
by what made them successful,
very self-centered,
egotistical, ambitious,
dog-eat-dog, mano-a-mano guys.
Westbrook is one of the most
intensely-competitive
drivers I've ever met.
Such a gentleman, but you
see him get pissed off
when something happens,
it makes a great interview in the pits,
'cause there's no holds barred.
Joey Hand, he's a fighter.
He's like an MMA fighter in my opinion,
he's right there.
It's exciting for Marino.
His brother has outstanding success,
so the first thing is, people
going he's got the drive
because of his brother.
You don't do that in a
program at this level.
But this is his biggest
chance in his career,
and he knows it.
For Dirk Muller, one of
Nürburgring's top drivers,
has huge amounts of GT
manufacturing experience.
There's nothing they can
throw him on the radio
or on the track that he
won't have seen before.
I love the fact they
brought this group together.
- Ford's history at Le Mans
is one of the greatest stories
in Motorsports of all time,
and to be at the return is beyond words.
- It's not too often programs
come around like this.
I haven't even been to Le Mans, so for me
there's gonna be a lot of eyes wide open,
mouth probably a little
bit too occasionally,
just taking it all in.
- You know, the history of Le Mans,
the first thing you think
about is the Ford GT.
Suddenly you're being part of that,
it's like a dream come true.
- For me, it's the first
thing that came to mind.
I wanna be part of that history.
- Because there's nobody there
that wouldn't send that thing
right into the fence
trying to win that race.
'Cause those are all top-notch,
front-running bad asses
in those cars right now.
You could almost overdo it.
- [Dave] To be handed the mantle
to make this program
be successful and win,
that's a big deal.
So Ganassi's assembled
the kind of driving talent
that there are no excuses.
They've been assembled for a reason.
They're professionals,
and they're there to win.
- Prior to Le Mans, we'll have six races
starting at Daytona.
All of those are gonna be real races,
but they're also, to some extent,
gonna be practice for Le Mans.
And certainly our plan is to get better
every single race,
and leading up to make sure we're ready
as we can be for Le Mans.
- Look, we're having all-new car,
we're having all-new drivers,
who have no familiarity
with those vehicles,
so it's a tall order.
It's a very tall order.
Having said that, I expect us to win.
- [Brian] Welcome everyone
Daytona, I'm Brian Till,
thrilled to be part of another Rolex 24,
and the Ford GT has everyone talking.
- The guy that's been
dreaming about this for months
is executive VP and
Chief Technical Officer
of Ford, Raj Nair,
now the battle back then was with Ferrari,
the crosstown guys are Corvette,
we all dream about storybook finishes.
Who would you like to
be banging doors with,
head out by a nose,
Corvette or Ferrari in 24 hours?
- Wow, yeah, we're pretty
focused on the win,
so hopefully we don't focus too much time
on what the order is behind us.
We're just going to focus on the front.
- Nervous, really yeah.
Nervous, stressed, stressed out a bit.
Everything that we need to
do technically, we've done.
I'm very confident in that aspect.
But 24-hour endurance racing,
is a bit of statistical
luck associated with it.
I'm not gonna tell you
we're not here to win,
I mean you go racing to win,
we all go racing to win,
but this really is all
about going to Le Mans.
This is it for my career.
I don't know what I'm gonna do after this.
I'll probably buy a winery
somewhere, I don't know.
This is it, this is it.
Going to Le Mans this year, that's it.
- [Announcer] They roll into the throttle.
We are green!
Daytona The Rolex 24.
- [Announcer] Speaking of machines,
there's the 66 Joey Hand,
he is now up in the second,
and is running down the 911 it's Andy.
- [Announcer] This is
first and second GTLM.
- He's outside.
- Joey's outside!
- [Announcer] He pulled a draft earlier,
parked out, parked alongside,
he's gonna cross the stripe in the lead,
can he hold it down into turn one?
Ford leads on their debut.
(engine revving)
Ford versus Chevrolet
here on the high banks.
- [Announcer] This is going
to be an interesting one,
here take a look at that Ford.
- [Announcer] Ooh with the lane there.
- [Announcer] Ooh that was close!
- [Announcer] That was a problem, yeah.
Certainly lost some drive
there off of that turn
for Ryan Briscoe.
- [Ryan] Guys, it's stuck in sixth gear.
Should I come to pit road?
- [Pit Crewman] Yeah 10-4, pit this lap.
(engines roaring)
- [Ryan] So what it's doing
is it's just flickering
between fifth and sixth gear right now.
- [Pit Crewman] It's something internal,
and we'll go back to the garage.
(machinery whirring)
(pit crew murmuring)
- Carried out a bit of diagnosis,
found that it was one
of the pneumatic valves
that controls the
shifting and the gear box.
It's not something we've
seen to date in testing,
it's a shame it had to happen in a race.
- [Announcer] Another problem
for one of the Ford GTs.
It is the 66, this is not good,
so Joey's going to pull it
off the racing surface down to the inside.
He's lost drive completely.
He's gonna have to rely on safety workers
to get him back into the garage area.
- I hate losing.
I don't like it.
To be honest, we expected
the reliability to be better.
Some of the things that broke today
are either not even new for the car,
they're parts that a lot of the field
are running as well,
but for some reason they broke on our car.
Some of the things we wouldn't see
in normal testing,
you just have to race to see it.
That doesn't change the frustration
of having that many issues.
(gentle music)
- [Announcer] This car,
since it's been back out and running, Cal,
has been running very, very quickly.
- [Announcer] It really has.
I think Ryan Briscoe may have set
the fastest lap of the race
in the GTLM category.
It's a strong pace,
and 24 hours will now become
a test session for them.
They're looking at the big picture
of the championship.
I know they wanted success
their first time out,
but there's a lot of other milestones
they've gotta try and
reach this year as well.
- We've got a good amount of time
to go back and take a
look at what went right
and what went wrong, and
I think we'll come back
ready to go for Sebring,
and we'll be even stronger
than we are right now.
- You can't have it both ways.
You can't have something
really, really, really matter,
and have it be totally controlled.
That's just the nature of it.
But that's what makes this sport.
I mean the highs are so high,
but they're also not frequent.
The best guys win 10% of the races.
And so to have everything line up
on the day, on the year,
just doesn't happen very often.
- We showed up at Daytona
with higher hopes,
and obviously left
with our tail between
our legs a little bit.
I think we were caught out by some issues
that I would characterize as
when you're trying to
do things in six months
that other people have been
working on for six years.
You say, "Oh yeah, I forgot about that."
- The general conversation after Daytona
was are they embarrassed?
They tell you the program is good.
They tell you the car is strong.
They tell you they're gonna
win a race at some point.
And then to not be able to make it
to the first two hours of the race
because of a gear box issue,
you're immediately like,
"Oh are they embarrassed?"
Were they lying?
Have they had these issues?
It raises some question marks for sure.
- Welcome to the pit lane
at the one and only Sebring 12 hours.
This is Spring break for racers,
and over 80,000 people have been here
partying this weekend.
But right now,
it's time for those racers to rock.
With more on the action
at the front of the grid
is Jamie Howe.
- Well the energy here at Sebring, Justin,
has been felt all week long,
the nerves, and the aches,
from not just the drivers
but also the crews
have been evident.
- Coming off of Daytona
we had some issues.
We know we have them
fixed, but this is Sebring.
This is a whole new animal.
So I don't expect to see
the issues that we fixed,
but it won't surprise me
if we see some new issues.
Looks like we're gonna
get some rain today,
and that's a good thing.
We'll go out and put the car
through its paces in the rain.
So today's gonna be interesting.
This is the kind of
track that we always say,
it's half the size, and twice as hard.
So we'll see what happens.
(engine roaring)
- [Announcer] Now on
board the 66 from Ford,
running third right now, Dirk Muller,
and a lot of people were surprised to see
some of the problems that
they had at Rolex 24,
I don't think we were.
Brand new car, first race,
and what they really want,
the prize that they want
is Le Mans coming up in June.
(engine squealing)
(car thuds)
(suspenseful music)
- When the airplane
crashes, who do you blame?
The pilot.
That's the position that you
choose to put yourself in
when you want to become a
professional race car driver.
But sometimes it's not
necessarily always fair.
And you don't want to be that guy
that writes that thing off.
You know, you just don't
want to be that guy.
- Normally if you have a locked wheel
normally you should be able to still turn.
Because the right side wasn't locked.
- Yeah, the right side didn't show lock.
It was just the left side.
- Only left.
I tried, I tried, I tried,
but there was so much water,
I was basically just floating.
And that was unfortunate.
But the team came to me,
and said there was nothing you can do,
which brings me up again,
because you feel you let your boys down.
- Well you need always someone
to go off and to make an excuse,
and this time it was you.
- Thank you.
- Dirk just got caught out,
and locked up in a turn,
when there was really nothing he could do.
The car hydroplaned.
All the telemetry set, the brake pressure,
and everything was good.
But the car just hydroplaned,
and went into the tire wall.
And unfortunately right after that
was when they red flagged
it for the conditions.
So we just missed that by a little bit.
And now the car's back here in the garage,
but during a red flag
you can't repair the vehicle.
Looks like it's going to be a red flag
for a while.
- I spend most of my time
on the NASCAR side of things,
and then I fly in on race
day, and race weekend,
and help these guys.
I help on the front end of these cars.
We wanna perform well, we
wanna make some history,
and you know, back up the program
for Ford and for ourselves as fans.
I think all of us are trying to think
more long term towards Le Mans,
trying to make big
gains on our reliability
and trying to make the best of it.
(upbeat rock music)
- I'm happy, I mean, I'm not thrilled,
jumping-up-and-down happy,
but all the issues we had at Daytona
we didn't have any
recurrence of those issues,
so from that perspective we're good.
- [Scott] Through these first few races
maybe we got our bad luck out of the way.
- [Announcer] Here we see that 66 car
that's been through the wars
a little bit here today.
- [Announcer] Problems it looked like
for both of these Ford GTs.
(engines roaring)
- I think we've been building momentum
since Daytona.
We've been working on getting everything
synced together,
getting the whole team,
getting the car ready
to be durable and run.
We want to show up at the track,
not have a lot of the
extracurricular activity,
and just go race.
(engine roaring)
- With every race we continue to improve
and get better, and get
faster and more reliable.
And coming into Laguna,
I think everybody felt positive
and cautiously optimistic
about the weekend.
- [Announcer] Now see the
second of the Ford GTs
Richard Westbrook down on the inside
into the hip, what a move!
- [Announcer] What a story this is
as they head into the
month of June and Le Mans.
- [Announcer] He heads
into the final turn,
and here it is, the first win,
the Ford GT in Monterey!
Today Cal, they came together.
- From Daytona to Laguna Seca,
you saw a program gel.
You saw them have problems mechanically,
you saw them have problems personally,
and then you saw them all come together
and make it work.
- Not only was it the first
obviously win for the GT,
but it was the biggest morale boost
I think that you could've had in a team
that has been working 24 hours
a day, seven days a week,
giving everything they got,
and what a validation
of what's been going on.
- [Announcer] Two Fords,
getting ready for the big one.
This is more like the cars
we were expecting to see
from Ford at the beginning of the season.
These are the Fords
we've been looking for.
- Everyone's ready, but then
the actual race happens,
and things you just can't predict.
It's racing, and everyone knows in racing,
things go wrong.
(brakes squealing)
(car thuds)
(tires crash)
(somber music)
- The best racer in the world
loses more races than he wins.
You have to have a
mentality of if you lose,
you don't dwell on losing.
You dwell on why did you lose,
and how are you gonna fix
that for the next race?
- Sitting here three days
before the start of the race,
I guess the biggest thing is
where do we really stand
with the pace of the car,
and the endurance of the car?
I think that's everybody's question.
It's a lot of stuff going on.
- I didn't really like the week.
I liked the race.
You're just building up, building up.
And you want to get out on the track.
But Wednesday's a good day,
it's the start of first practice,
start of first qualifying.
(engine roaring)
- You want to have the fastest lap
at the end of the qualifying sessions
so that you can start on pole
for the 24 hours of Le Mans.
Ford kinda came in and
surprised everybody,
they weren't spectacular in the test days,
in the week leading up to the race,
but they were spectacular in qualifying.
Ford had their four cars
in the top five positions.
- Being one, two, four, and five
is a good start.
It was the first time we had run the car
in full-out qualifying trim here.
And I think it's fair
to say for all of us,
the car responded even
better than we expected,
which is why I think
there's a good mood here.
We've got a lot of work to do,
so it'll be important to stay focused.
(camera shutter clicking)
- People are excited
about where we qualified,
and that's a good thing,
and it's exciting,
and it shows the potential of the car,
but in reality, in endurance race,
qualifying is not very important.
By Sunday afternoon,
people will forget where
everyone qualified.
- They have a lofty expectation.
The perfect story is that they win
this particular weekend in June.
No one will blame them for not winning,
because it's too hard a feat
to go to Le Mans in the first year.
They'll lead the race, for sure.
They'll lead the race
for a lot of it, I think.
Their drivers are equally
as fast as anybody,
and the car is super quick.
But the demands of the long run through,
and not getting involved in accidents,
and what is the weather
going to be like, is tough.
(helicopter blades whirring)
- When I came on in the
first year of Corvette,
our three-year program was literally
just to be able to go there.
That first year, our car finished third,
and Ron's car finished fourth.
And the team was ecstatic.
Never did anybody ever
have a delusional thought
that we're going there to win the race.
It's much harder than anybody thinks,
and sometimes you can
have all the components
that you think are right in line,
but they've got to gel,
they've got to blend.
And best of luck to them, for sure.
(helicopter blades whirring)
But it is no easy feat to go in there
the first time after 50 years
and try to win that race.
- Ford's data bank of going to Le Mans
is not rich.
Same for Ganassi.
Ganassi has no institutional knowledge
of going to Le Mans.
I mean, everyone else is trying to win.
Corvette, probably the highest technology
race team outside McLaren.
Pratt and Miller do the guidance systems
for tracking missiles in space.
So they can make a race
car go around a track.
They've won there eight or 10 times
out of the last 15 years.
- Porsche, man, they've
got that place figured out.
They are the outright,
all-time winning brand,
and it is to this day
what creates that aura
that makes Porsche what it is.
Ford, it's an unknown entity.
There's gonna be things
that need to be figured out.
- [Announcer] Information to the pit lane,
information to the pit lane.
The race will start behind the safety car.
As per the regulations,
the race will start at 1500
lining up behind the safety car.
(engine roaring)
- [Pit Crewman] Just give us a bit
of a weather report as you go around.
- [Andy] Yes, mate, we've got heavy rain
on the Mulsanne Straight.
No standing water, just drying
wet conditions at the moment.
- The tough thing here at Le Mans
is the track's about eight
and a half miles long,
so you can have rain on one end
and then dry on the other.
And that's when it becomes very tricky,
because you have to stay on slick tires,
you can't use rains
'cause you'll burn up the
rains on the dry part.
So you have to just work your way
through the wet part.
- [Andy] Bone dry in the
second chicane, guys, bone dry.
- From a driver's standpoint,
we just really would like to have
one or the other.
It becomes really tricky
when it goes back and forth,
but it is what it is.
- Le Mans is a very treacherous place.
There was times where
there's river crossings,
and you'd go over it three times,
and you wouldn't aquaplane,
and you'd hit at the same angle
the next time at 180 miles an hour,
and the whole car would go
(clicks) like that.
And then you'd go, oh,
you've gotta breathe.
- [Pit crewman] So, we're
gonna have to gauge this, Andy.
Obviously we've got all the options ready.
You did drive in all the conditions,
so you're sort of the best judge.
Give us as much feedback as you can.
- [Andy] At the moment
we would take drying wet,
without a doubt.
- [Put Crewman] Yeah Andy,
with the weather the way it is,
you can afford to speed up a bit.
You're okay to give it some more RPM.
- [Andy] Copy, higher RPM.
(engine roaring)
(beeps) I'm stuck in third gear, mate.
No upshift at the moment.
No upshift at the moment.
- [Pit Crewman] Andy, just
go to manual mode a minute.
- [Andy] In manual mode I have upshift.
In manual mode I have upshift.
- [Pit Crewman] Okay, try downshift
see if it frees it, downshift.
- [Andy] No downshift, no downshift.
- [Pit Crewman] Keep
requesting up and down,
keep requesting up and down.
Does it shift continuously
with the clutch in?
- [Andy] At the moment
no, it's sticking, mate.
I'm in the last corner onto the grid.
Stuck in fourth gear.
You're gonna have to push me.
I'm not gonna burn the clutch out here.
- [Pit Crewman] Okay,
Andy, we're coming to you.
See what we can do.
- [Announcer] The number 67 Ford GT,
one of four identical cars in this race,
being backed into its garage.
Andrew Marriot, can you update?
- [Andrew] Yeah, well they've definitely
got an engine problem with this.
They've fired it off a couple of times.
The rear deck is off.
So that's what they're
working on at the moment.
I'm pretty sure that this
car won't take the start.
Driver sitting at the wheel,
there's about 15 people
all clustered around it.
George Howard Chappell, the team manager,
is directing operations here,
but there's definitely
something wrong with the motor.
- [Pit Crewman] So, just
so everybody understands,
it's worth a ten minute
go of fixing it like this
because otherwise basically,
we're into a really big stop,
so it won't matter much, will it?
- [Andy] I wonder what
the procedure is now,
when everyone else is gone.
- Just wait for the green light, then go.
- [Andy] Have they set off yet?
- No, no, no.
We're a lap down, for sure,
but if you can get out before that, then.
- [Announcer] Well Harry, this
is a crushing disappointment.
I thought this whole motor problem
was fixed with the gear box.
- Yeah, this issue, we've
lost gear box pressure
on the reconnaissance lap,
so brought it into the box,
and the boys think they
found maybe a quick fix,
so we're going to see if that works.
If not, I think we're going to be
in for slightly longer.
But we're going to try this
now and see how it goes.
- You had one of the Fords
starting from the garage.
The cars are so close.
They're built exactly the same.
So immediately off the
bat, you're like, okay,
so are four cars gonnamake
the end of this race,
or are any cars gonna
make the end of the race?
It was for 24 hours,
you're questioning the
survival of the program.
- Yeah, for that to happen
even before the race starts,
on the one hand you're thinking,
oh boy, this is gonna be a long 24 hours.
On the other hand, I was thinking,
well I'm glad I brought four cars.
- [Announcer] Back live at Le Mans.
A rainy French day, but
the sun is poking through.
Crowd in the grandstand
are folding their umbrellas
and taking off their rain
slickers, that's a good sign.
This is the first time in
84 runnings of this race
the 24 hours of Le Mans has
started behind the safety car.
- [Announcer] Safety cars are in,
green lights all around the track.
No overtaking before you cross the line.
Safety cars are in, green
lights all around the track.
No overtaking before you cross the line.
- [Announcer] 60 cars are now on their way
at Le Mans under green.
- The class structure in
sports car racing is unique.
You've essentially four different races
going on on the race
track at the same time.
So you have the prototypes.
Those are things that
manufacturers are developing
to be on their cars,
maybe five, 10 years down the road.
From a coverage standpoint,
you always follow the overall leader.
So that's always in sports car racing
going to be a prototype.
But recently, the GT categories
have gained a lot more interest
because they are cars
that people can relate to.
GTE pro cars look like cars
that you would see
driving down the street.
The competition level there is so intense.
- [Announcer] Quite a
battle here in GTE pro
between the Ferraris and the Fords,
just like we saw 50 years ago.
- [Announcer] Quite a battle it is.
One of the Ferraris just
in front of the Ford GTs.
(engine roaring)
- Everywhere you go, someone reminds you
about the history of Ford in Le Mans.
So you're permanently reminded of it,
and you can't really escape it.
Not that I want to.
(engines roaring)
- For me, I think there's
definitely some nerves.
You understand the big picture,
you understand the
emphasis on the 50 year,
there's obviously a big story behind it.
But to expect to come
here and win the fist year
is a very large expectation.
We try to think of everything as a team,
you try to think of
every different scenario,
but a lot of us haven't been here,
we haven't raced here before.
There's just so many things
that can take you out of it.
But I think with having four cars
definitely spreads that stress
and emotion a little bit.
- No matter what happens,
we're going to be part of history.
I'm gonna be one of those guys
that 50 years later,
made an attempt at this,
hopefully we can say that we won it,
or podiumed, or whatever,
but at least made an attempt at it.
(engines roaring)
(car bumps)
- [Pit Crewman] (beep) You all right?
What happened there?
- [Marino] Just locked up, mate.
Couldn't get it unlocked.
Sorry boys.
- [Pit Crewman] Okay mate,
you just have to wait to get recovered.
- [Announcer] This is
not where you want to be
at the end of the Mulsanne,
at the Mulsanne corner,
and for Marino Franchitti,
that's not where he wants to be right now.
And he said on the radio,
"I just locked him up,
"I couldn't get it unlocked."
He is not the first car
that we have seen in there.
In fact, it's a very
popular place to be today.
But it's an easy mistake to make
at the end of the straightaway.
The good news for Ford
is this is the car that
had the problem early on.
It was already several laps down,
and they did bring four of them, so.
- [Raj] Right now the 67 car
is really out of contention.
The 68 car is doing really well.
It's trading first place back and forth
with Ferrari right now,
so we'll see what the night brings.
(gentle music)
- [Pit Crewman] Joey, let's pit this lap.
Pit, pit, we'll do a driver change.
Disconnect your cooling tube.
Disconnect your drink tube.
- [Joey] Copy that.
That's good news, 'cause we
don't have a lot left here.
- [Announcer] Good time to
make some driver changes.
Go ahead, put those guys in,
let them run into the twilight,
and then when you put your next driver in,
in a couple of stints from
now, a few stints from now,
they can get in in total darkness
and they'll already be acclimated to it.
And we saw the 68, Joey
Hand, pitted from the lead.
Sebastien Bourdais has
taken over that car,
Billy Johnson aboard the 66 now.
- [Announcer] And you
brought up the point too,
Brian, about having the same driver
in this transitional period
from daylight to darkness,
that the effect the sun has on your eyes,
the different places that it bothers you
around the racetrack,
and having someone in there
as it's transitioning,
and not just in there right away.
(tools whirring)
- Beginning of the race
was a little bit stressful,
because number 67 had
some gear box problems,
but got back in, and
they're all racing now.
And I can't wait until the sun goes down,
because that's when it becomes
really, really special.
(engine roaring)
(dramatic music)
- [Announcer] Beautiful overhead view
as the night falls
and the party begins in earnest.
(engines roaring)
- Racing at Le Mans, especially at night,
is a very out-of-body experience.
Not that it's so pleasant,
but you're doing it, and the visual input
you're getting as a human
is very out of this world.
- The guys do get into a, let's
not call it a trance state,
that sounds crazy, but guys get in a zone,
and at night especially,
and you get in a rhythm
of driving that track,
and where on occasion
you talk to your driver
on the radio, and they'll not answer you.
- It's like you're almost in a dream
because everything is so weird.
The lights, the weather,
the racing itself,
you know, you have to really trust
your knowledge of the course,
because you're going into corners
170, 180 miles an hour,
and if you get it wrong, you know,
you're gonna get really hurt.
- [Richard] I mean, it is
dangerous, it is dangerous.
You can't get away from that.
It's that sort of tunnel feeling
when you go through Tertre Rouge,
down the long straight,
and then sometimes it can get
a bit lonely out there, it's weird.
Sometimes in the night,
you don't see any other cars,
and you might do a radio check
just to check your team is still there.
- We put repeaters out
all around the track,
radio repeaters, our telemetry can't deal
with the size of that track.
So if you're just trying
to take everything
in and out from the pits,
the Mulsanne corner's too far away.
So you've got all these
repeaters out there,
you do everything you can to keep
the radio contact with your driver.
- [Announcer] Back at Le Mans,
lighter still are the skies overhead,
partly cloudy skies,
it looks like hopefully
we are free of rain
in the run to the finish.
Now a little over 9 hours away.
- Overnight, Ford and Ferrari
went back and forth.
And then when the sun came
up for the second day,
Ferrari was leading,
and Ford found themselves in second.
- [Sebastian] I have lost a lot of grip
between the first and the second stint.
Picked up a lot of understeer.
- [Pit Crewman] Yean, 10-4.
That's what we figured.
We may change our plan here a little bit.
- [Announcer] That Ferrari
really came to life
as we got the darkness last night.
Hasn't let up since.
Seems to me just reeling into the path
the last, six, eight hours Tommy.
The Ford seems to be a bit susceptible
to the cooler conditions,
and running behind the pace car
hasn't got a lot of
the tire temp in there,
track conditions aren't that high
either right now,
so seems like the car
is not quite coming to life
as quickly as the Ferrari
has been all night.
- [Announcer] Which is
kinda keeping our thesis
that it maybe is between compounds
and would like a softer one right now
in these conditions.
Now, if things get warmer,
does that put them right
into their sweet spot
and start to take the
Ferrari out of theirs,
is maybe the question.
- [Announcer] Based on
yesterday afternoon,
you'd say so.
- [Announcer] Le Mans born and bred,
Sebastien Bourdais trying to run down
Toni Vilander in the
class leading Ferrari.
- [Announcer] He doesn't
like being second.
He's been second three times overall,
running for Peugeot.
Frenchman, his hometown is Le Mans.
Wants that one position
ahead of the Ferrari.
- For me it's really tough,
because I've been dominating this place
so many times, and came short
within the last few hours,
or something's gone wrong in the morning,
or whatever and it's just one of those
where you kind of
dreading almost the moment
where it's just going to go haywire,
and you kind of almost start to feel
like there may be a curse or something.
Last time I was in the car,
around from six to 9:00 a.m,
or something like that,
the computer went bananas,
and now I had no information.
Speedometer wasn't working anymore,
so I had to come through the pits,
guesstimate it's speed
'cause the display wasn't
displaying anything anymore,
and I couldn't stop the car,
and it's, this is happening again.
- We were having trouble
with electronics in the car,
and so much of it goes
through our steering wheel,
including when we come into the pits,
the drivers shut the engine off
through the steering wheel,
and only then are we
allowed to refuel the cars.
So the rule says engine must be off
while we're refueling.
(engine roars)
And when he came in,
the engine didn't shut off.
(engine roaring)
(radio beeps)
- [Announcer] Information to the pit lane.
Drive-through penalty on car 68,
drive-through penalty on car 68
for having the engine running
during the refueling.
- [Announcer] That is huge.
That's Dirk Muller,
that's the second-place GTE pro entry,
they'll have to come to pit lane,
and right now the gap,
only 12.5 seconds in GTE pro,
but this is huge for Ford.
- Having to serve a penalty at Le Mans
means that you have to exit the racetrack,
your race speed, drop to pit lane speed,
drive all the way down pit lane,
and then get yourself
back up to speed again
in a safe manner.
It can cost you at least 30 seconds.
- [Pit Crewman] Can we have
a drive-through penalty for a pit stop?
The engine was running
while we were fueling.
I need you to drive straight
through the pits here.
Sorry, buddy.
- That's what separates racing
from every other sport.
You can hit the worst shot
in the history of golf
and still win the Masters
on one of your shots.
You can throw an absolutely atrocious pass
and win the Superbowl.
If you have a bad corner at Le Mans,
you're not winning.
- [Announcer] We talk about mistakes
that can take you out of this event,
did Ford just make a mistake on pit lane?
We'll have to see how that pans out.
You've got plenty of time left.
You had a problem, over six hours to go,
and you come in, you take your medicine,
and now you focus forward
on getting the job done again.
And you make up that distance.
You can't let that affect you mentally.
(engine roaring)
- The car's very easy on its tires.
We designed it that way.
But it also means it doesn't
always get heat in the tires,
particularly on a cold night.
And as it warmed up,
we knew the car was gonna get faster,
and so we knew we still had a
good chance of catching them,
but it was going to require us
to really run flat out from that point.
Dirk got that message, and
he just ran lap after lap
after lap, and cut into that lead,
and I think by the time
he handed the car over,
he'd cut almost a minute
down to 15 seconds or so.
- [Pit Crewman] Okay, Dirk, pit this lap.
Pit this, disconnect your helmet tube.
Disconnect your drink tube, driver change.
Joey, they left Malucelli in,
you're seven seconds back.
I'll keep you posted, buddy.
Good, clean laps here.
- [Announcer] Joey Hand
now behind the wheel
of 68 as he hunts down Matteo Malucelli,
here ride-on board with Joey right now,
and the car that you see in front
is the bright red number 82.
This is for the lead
in GTE pro at Le Mans.
(engines roaring)
As the weather continues to warm up
throughout the day,
expect the Ford to get better, and better,
and better, and that is not
good news for the Ferrari, Kent.
- [Joey] This is right in my wheelhouse.
This is where I live, right here.
Going to chase somebody
down and pass them,
that point in the race,
you're starting to wind down.
When you pass somebody for the lead,
that could be the pass.
If you have a car that
can go run somebody down,
pass them, and keep going,
they're gonna have to catch you, right?
There's not gonna be any freebies.
- [Announcer] The Ford accelerated
seems about the same level,
but eventually the
Ferrari gets to a plateau,
and the Ford just seems to keep pulling.
- Ah, it's working.
(dramatic music)
(engine roaring)
Get him, Joey!
Yes!
(pit crew applauding)
- A lot of time left.
- Ford versus Ferrari.
It feels like it's 50 years ago.
Now we'll have to wait
until the end of the race,
but you know, the cars look good,
and very optimistic.
(engines roaring)
- [Announcer] Ryan Briscoe, aboard the 69,
so in the top three right now in GTE pro,
there's Ford, Ferrari, and Ford.
Two U.S.-based cars
from Ford Chip Ganassi,
currently in the top three.
(engine roaring)
Oh, and problems with
the 82, Toni Vilander.
That is a big spin.
This is what's scary right now,
hopefully people are paying attention
to the yellows,
and Vilander trying to get out of the way,
and then back on track.
- [Announcer] This is also huge for Ford.
You can't give away anything
to competitors like this
that you're running up against,
or Ford will say, "Thank you very much,"
and take that and
capitalize on it big time.
- Yeah, that Ferrari's
made that little spin
and given us a little breather,
I think the race has
switched a little bit,
now it's going to be a
pure reliability match,
and the pace seems to
be very evenly matched,
so fingers crossed, and
bring it on right now.
Just kind of sit tight,
let the guys figure it out.
There's nothing I can do anymore,
just watch and hope.
- [Announcer] Before Vilander spun,
it was just over five seconds.
It's now two minutes and five seconds
that that cost them.
- [Announcer] Huge, and what it does is
it moves Toni Vilander back closer
to Ryan Brisco in the 69.
So it's like, one moment
you're trying to hang on to the lead,
the next moment, you're trying to recover
from the mistake and
hang on to second place.
(engine revving)
- [Pit Crewman] Okay, Joey, pit this lap.
Disconnect your drink tube.
Remember, Dirk is getting in the car.
- [Joey] Copy, pit this lap.
- [Announcer] Two hours to go.
At this point, Ford has
been nearly flawless.
- [Announcer] Dirk Muller going in,
Joey helping him out.
- [Announcer] Muller should
be in now, until the checker.
Two hours left.
- [Announcer] Joey gives him a pat,
says, "Have a good one brother."
(tools whirring)
Meanwhile, the 82 in second,
not about to give up the fight.
(engine roaring)
- [Pit Crewman] Okay, Dirk,
you're plus 36 seconds right now.
Two hours to go, Dirk.
Two hours to go, focus forward.
Keep the car clean.
(inspiring music)
- [Dirk] I tried to go slow, to be honest,
but I was making little mistakes.
I just told myself, just
do your normal pace.
I mean, if the car's not able
to do ten more laps, then that's it.
I had to be focused.
- [Pit Crewman] Plus 43
seconds, four, three.
Doing a good job.
Almost halfway through this stint.
- [Announcer] Let's go to Andrew Marriot.
- Well, Raj Nair, I can't say
you've got a smile on your face,
because I'm sure your heart's
in your mouth at the moment.
- Yeah, we've got 37 minutes to go,
and maybe I'll smile then.
- Keep everything crossed, Raj.
- Yeah, I've got all my
fingers and toes crossed.
- Thank you.
- [Announcer] Sounded nervous, didn't he?
- [Announcer] Yeah, he did.
- 2003, we had about a two-lap lead,
I came in for the last pit stop,
and the center-lock nut,
that holds the wheel on,
it rolled underneath
the car sharp side up.
It's hard to tell this story,
because that's how I lost the race.
But the sharp edge punctured
right through the carbon fiber
bottom of the car, into the oil pan.
And all the oil came out of the car.
What it takes to get to Le Mans
and to be in a winning
car in a winning position,
and have it taken away from you,
and know that will never happen,
I will never win Le Mans.
That was a tough pill,
because I knew this was ours.
- [Pit Crewman] 24 minutes to go, Dirk.
Your gap is one minute, 19 seconds.
The guys behind you put on tires.
They're a little quicker,
but we have plenty of gap.
- When I was really little,
probably about four or five,
I remember my father coming home,
and he was so excited to tell me about it,
and what a great win it had been for Ford.
And I remember thinking,
I wish I had been there.
(radio beeps)
- [Announcer] Time of
24 hours has elapsed.
This is the last lap.
- [Pit Crewman] Coming to
the checkered here, buddy.
Coming to the checkered.
- [Dirk] Oh my God, woo!
(crew cheering)
(crew applauding)
- [Henry] 50 years, baby!
- Unbelievable, I love you guys.
We made history, here.
That's my dream come true, this weekend.
I mean, that's something
you will never, ever dream about.
I mean, it's crazy.
I think we have achieved
something big here today.
(cork pops)
(crew cheering)
- This is as good as it gets!
When we approved this program,
we did it to come race here at Le Mans,
and I think we've proven
it's the right decision.
- We did what we came here to do,
we did it for our
employees, and our families,
and everybody who loves Ford.
I hope they're proud of us.
- [Announcer] Sebastien Bourdais.
Sebastien's dad Patrick,
drove in this race.
- When you race for so many people,
and you feel that there's
kind of a greatness
in the whole thing,
it's just something I've
never experienced before.
And to be able to see how much it meant
to the Ford family, it was just priceless.
- You know, I think back
50 years to my father,
who I was there with,
and I think he would be extremely proud.
And he would have been even prouder
the minute we passed that Ferrari.
What a moment.
I had to sort of take a hold of myself.
That was really incredible.
(crowd cheering)
(crowd applauding)
- Holy cow, we won Le Mans.
You dream about this stuff,
and you try and picture
yourself in the moment,
and it's crazy to think about
the amount of people it took to get here.
- I don't know how to feel yet,
but I know it feels good.
It was about coming back to Le Mans
and showing that we as Ford Motor Company
have what it takes to win.
It took all of us to make this happen.
Every one of those people
in every one of those garages
put the Ford GT across the finish line.
That I do know.
This is what it means to be a team.
(inspiring music)
(upbeat music)
(gentle music)
