Ford Is Gunning for Le Mans Glory In 2027, Announces New LMDh Racer

Nearly 60 years after Ford won the Le Mans championship against Ferrari, the automaker is jumping back into the fray

Between 1966 and 1969, Ford took the Le Mans crown…and now its back for more.

One of the most iconic and heroic stories of racing glory centers around the Ford GT40 and Ford’s bitter rivalry with Ferrari. Nearly six decades after the Blue Oval seized Le Mans victory four times in a row — including a full 1-2-3 sweep in 1966 — the automaker is returning to 24 Hours of Le Mans as part of the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2027, it announced Friday.

“We are entering a new era for performance and racing at Ford,” said executive chairman Bill Ford. “And there is no track or race that means more to our history than Le Mans. It is where we took on Ferrari and won in the 1960s. It is where we returned 50 years later and shocked the world and beat Ferrari again (the Chip Ganassi Racing Team’s No. 68 Ford GT won Le Mans in 2016)…We are ready to once again challenge the world, and ‘go like hell!”

Ford’s announcement went on to say it will field a full factory team for the top tier of prototype racing, with a new LMDh car entering the field in 2027. Their return to the sport follows arch-rival Ferrari, which took overall wins for the first time in decades in both 2023 and 2024. Cadillac is also fielding a pair of its V-Series.R LMDhs in the hypercar class this year.

No firm details on Ford Motor Company’s LMDh prototype is available yet, but we should learn more closer to its actual endurance racing debut. This latest development comes as the automaker has aggressively expanded its motorsports presence over the past few years, running across more than 20 different series including Dakar, NASCAR, Pikes Peak and Group GT3 with the new Mustang.