[MHNCO]

Integrity be damned by Ford. Just not the same as it was in 66.

Political Decisions at Le Mans Could Lead to Sports-Car Explosion

Balance of Performance is a high stakes game of poker with every manufacturer having a seat at the table. Every team bluffs, sandbagging during the off-season testing, not showing their cars full potential at the early races of the year. And they try to hide or manipulate data for the various sanctioning bodies. Ford did this better than anyone else leading up to Le Mans. BoP adjustments were made and Ford had a massive advantage compared to the field. And then Le Mans qualifying came. Ford, instead of going just fast enough, say 1.5 seconds faster than it ran during the Le Mans test weekend, went a blistering 4 seconds quicker. It essentially sent a message of “we played all of you.” What it also did was embarrass the WEC technical staff. So that staff adjusted the BoP again the day before the race. But it did so not nearly enough for most of the grid, as the Ford ran a race pace several seconds quicker than Corvette, Porsche, and Aston Martin.