That is a staggering amount of mileage for a brand-new machine. As FormulaUno.it reports, Ford has just completed a two-day test at Monza with the Hypercar that will contest the WEC starting in 2027, ticking every crucial box during its first outing running two cars simultaneously. After banking 154 laps and 920 kilometres on Tuesday, the squad from Detroit let the wheels of their LMDh spin for another 216 turns—equal to 1200 kilometres—pushing the total distance to nearly 2400. Up to this point, all three chassis supplied by Oreca have now hit the track, paired with the 5.4-litre naturally aspirated Coyote V8 engine.
Another vital piece of the puzzle is locked into place. Right at the Temple of Speed, which happens to host the WEC season finale this coming weekend from November 6-8, Ford Racing put away two days of testing that proved remarkably productive thanks to the presence of dual LMDh models, ahead of the official presentation scheduled for November 26 in Detroit on Thanksgiving Day. Up until the Silverstone trials, the Blue Oval's Hypercar program had only logged kilometres with a single vehicle. Bringing out the second specimen was therefore the first major step toward official homologation, which is targeted before the end of the year.
Action on the track fired up early in the morning, with Mike Rockenfeller among the drivers putting in the heaviest shift. Most stints didn't push past ten laps, showing a laser focus on calibration and setup refinement. Even so, lap times improved by about half a second compared to the previous day. Late in the morning, Rockenfeller hammered out a 25-lap stint, dropping progressively from times in the 1'36" bracket down to 1'34" high and 1'35" low by the end. During the afternoon hours, Nick Yelloly reeled off 48 laps in the #67, while Logan Sargeant pocketed 55 laps aboard the #66. As for the sharp end of the timing screens, Rockenfeller laid down a 1:34.624 in the morning session, a mark that Yelloly came agonizingly close to matching with a 1:34.746 later in the day.
Those reference times mirror the pace seen during the 6 Hours of Monza back in 2023, run under a scorching sun on older tarmac and over taller curbs, particularly at Ascari. But the stopwatch is secondary here. Ford bagged a massive haul of data and kilometres that backs up the quiet optimism radiating from the garage since the very first wheel turned. With the systems understood and sorted on the second car, the crew back in Detroit can look to the immediate future with genuine conviction.
Among the six drivers selected by Ford, the only notable absentee was Matt Campbell, who is still under contract with Porsche—a manufacturer he has driven for since 2023 in the 963 fielded by Team Penske, winning the 2024 Rolex 24 at Daytona and coming agonizingly close to victory at Le Mans the following year. Campbell recently noted his pleasant surprise at the solidity, body, and character of the engine. His absence leaves a spotlight on the Australian, who brings not just immense talent but a mountain of data straight from Porsche’s LMDh project.
According to Dan Sayers, Hypercar program manager, Ford will soon head to Motorland Aragon for their first endurance test. It is the ideal stage to gauge both the reliability and the behavior of the LMDh across continuous stints, shifting schedules, and changing weather. A run at Sebring is also on the cards, where the notoriously brutal, bumpy asphalt and demanding layout will serve as the ultimate trial by fire for the American biposto.
