Ford Performance Director Dave Pericak says he’s “concerned” about this year’s Balance of Performance (BoP) changes for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, reports Sportscar365. None of Ford’s four GTE-Pro entries managed to set particularly strong times on Le Mans Test Day, June 4th.
“It seems that every time we talk Le Mans, the story is always around BoP and how that’s all going to shake out and where we’re going to be,” he says. “Overall I’m concerned about the BoP, looking at last year’s race, and how it played out and how competitive it was.”
The Ford GT’s quickest lap on Test Day, timed at 3:57.536, was around two seconds slower than what Ferrari ran in testing, according to Sportscar365. It was some six seconds slower than the team’s best qualifying time at Le Mans 2016.
Ford and Ferrari last year were locked in a near-constant battle for first in the GTE-Pro class, with Ford ultimately just eking out a win due partly to fortune. But while the Ford GT has been ordered to further limit its peak turbo boost pressure and carry 20 kilograms of ballast weight, BoP for the Ferrari 488 GTE has not changed at all since 2016’s Le Mans race, the car serving as a performance baseline in GTE Pro.
“When you look at the Ferrari being the baseline, I think a lot of people are forgetting that the factory Ferraris fell out” of contention last year, Pericak says. “But if you look at where they were early in the race, they were pretty quick. We’ve been pulled back a bit.
“If you look at all of that, it’s a bit puzzling to me at the moment as to where the BoP has been set.”
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