Ford Mustang GT3 Evo confirmed for Suzuka 1000km

American manufacturers in GT3 racing still have a long way to conquer the Asian market, in particular Japan, but a joint effort from Australia will bring the Ford Mustang GT3 Evo to Suzuka to take part in the Japanese leg of the Intercontinental GT Challenge and maybe convince prospective local teams.

While the entry for the Suzuka 1000km will have the whole factory package behind it, it will be fielded by a joint effort between Melbourne Performance Centre and Miedecke Motorsport. MMS uses Ford machinery in GT4 Australia and is sort of a neighbor of MPC, which has a long history operating VAG Group machinery, in special GT3 Audis, qualifying them to work in a project of this caliber.

The trio designated for the entry is composed by Christopher Mies, Dennis Olsen and Frederic Vervisch, demonstrating the commitment with the top endurance drivers that Ford has in their arsenal. It will be 19 years since a Ford appeared at the Suzuka 1000km, with DHG Racing getting a ninth place in the GT300 class with what was a heavily modified chassis with an engine derived from a Japan F3000 unit.

This will be the first time that the Mustang GT3 Evo will race in Japan outside of the LMGT3 specification, with Asia in general being a market of difficult penetration for the American GT3s. Corvette had a GT World Challenge Asia season with JMR to prove that the Z06 GT3.R is a proven package, which helped in the acquisition of an example by K-Tunes Racing, although their Corvette only has testing and free practice mileage on it.

The same JMR-Corvette combo is one of the contenders that the No. 64 Miedecke by MPC Ford Mustang GT3 Evo will face off at the Suzuka 1000km on 13 September, as Absolute Racing will field two Pro Cup Porsche entries, CRAFT Bamboo and 75 Express will have a Pro Cup Mercedes car each, PONOS Racing will use a Ferrari in the top class, with Lexus and Nissan making presence in the fight for overall honors with one-off entries from K-Tunes and 5ZIGEN, while BMW will be a notable absence from the Pro Cup despite having cars in other classes.

PHOTO: SRO