A new Australian one-make Ford Mustang racing series planned for 2026 was recently announced at the Ford 100 Years celebration in Melbourne and many racers and teams were certainly interested.
The new Ford Mustang Challenge debuted in America in 2024 with 38 drivers competing over 5 rounds, it fits between the GT3 and GT4 race series, and uses track only Ford Mustang Dark Horse R vehicles powered by a fourth generation 5.0 litre Coyote V8 developed by Ford Performance.
Although currently in its early stages of development here in Australia and with costings still a little vague, I hope it gets up as I can imagine it being like the current Toyota 86 series except on steroids and with older richer drivers!
Many years ago (1960’s and 70’s!!) there was a saying that justified motor manufacturing companies investing considerable amounts of money on car racing, “if a car won on Sundays, it sold on Monday’s” and with the new Mustang Challenge along with talk of a one-make Ferrari series in the wind, it would appear that the same adage is again being applied.
There is no doubt that since Jim Farley (a renowned racing nut) was appointed Ford Global CEO in October 2020, that Ford has cranked up its performance development investment and in turn reputation around the world, it’s almost as if we’ve stepped back in time.
As an example, in August 2024 when Ford announced that the 2025 Mustang GTD (Grand Touring Daytona) with its massive 815hp 5.2 litre V8, set a lap time of 6:57.685 at the Nürburgring, however it was clear the company wasn’t overly happy with the result. Although becoming the first American-made production car to break the seven-minute barrier around the Nordschleife, Ford engineers felt that adverse weather conditions held the GTD back and they planned another run early in May 2025.
The result of the re-run was exactly what Ford had hoped for, again with Ford factory driver Dirk Müller behind the wheel, the Mustang GTD’s new official time around the Nürburgring Nordschleife is 6:52.072, more than 5.5 seconds faster than Ford’s previous attempt.
According to Ford, the faster time wasn’t just the result of better weather, the GTD team updated the powertrain calibration, stiffened up the chassis with more torsional rigidity, reworked the ABS and traction-control behaviour and refined aerodynamic elements.
Müller’s first attempt in August landed the GTD fifth fastest among production sports cars on the Nürburgring official records list, however the most recent run places the GTD ahead of the 2022 Porsche 911 GT3 with the Manthey Performance Kit’s time of 6:55.737 but leaves it a fair stretch behind the 6:49.328 set by the 2022 Porsche 911 GT3 RS.
While the GTD’s time counts as an official production-car record, the model hasn’t yet officially entered production for customers, which according to Ford, will start in July with the pricing starting somewhere in excess of $300,000US.
Unfortunately, as a spoiler Ford’s fastest ever Mustang production car, one of the most expensive and exclusive road-legal Mustangs ever sold by Ford, won’t officially be sold in Australia, however I can’t help but feel we’ll see some imports here in the near future.
Speed never settles. The Ford Mustang® GTD takes on the Nürburgring again.
This DPCcars videos gives a more in depth look at the Mustang GTD and its record-breaking run:
Ford Mustang GTD Beats Porsche 911 GT3 at Nürburgring with Shocking Lap Time – DPCcars
