Jonathan M. Gitlin - Feb 3, 2023 3:32 pm UTC
Formula 1 just can't seem to keep American car companies away. Last month, we were stunned by the news that Cadillac wants to enter F1 with the Andretti team, which is seeking an entry into the sport. While that bid remains in doubt, here's one that isn't: Today, the Ford Motor Company revealed it will be back in F1 starting in 2026, when the new engine rules come into effect.
"This is the start of a thrilling new chapter in Ford's motorsports story that began when my great-grandfather won a race that helped launch our company," said Bill Ford, executive chair of Ford. "Ford is returning to the pinnacle of the sport, bringing Ford’s long tradition of innovation, sustainability, and electrification to one of the world’s most visible stages.”
Ford's first foray into F1 began in 1967 when Colin Chapman, the head of Lotus, persuaded Ford to pay for the development of a new racing engine that would be a stressed part of the F1 chassis. (In other words, it was a structural element of the car rather than being mounted in a cradle or subframe.) After being initially rebuffed, Chapman convinced Walter Hayes, the head of Ford UK's PR, to help him lobby the suits, and the result was a development budget of £100,000—about $1.7 million today—given to Cosworth to create the engine.
It was a heck of an investment. The Ford DFV, for "double four-valve," remains the most successful F1 engine of all time. Team Lotus won four races that year, at which point Ford told Chapman that the DFV was no longer exclusive to his team. Other teams were now free to design their cars with stressed engines, and for £7,500 (about $125,000 today), you could buy a race-winning engine for your F1 team.
And win races it did. Between 1967 and 1985, DFV-powered cars entered 262 F1 races and took home victory in 155 of them. In 1969 and 1973, only DFV-powered F1 cars won races. And that's without accounting for the variants of the engine that went on to be used in sports car racing or in F3000 (which was the series just below F1, now once again called F2).
Post-DFV, Ford remained in the sport, and while it was never quite as competitive in the 3.5 L and 3.0 L eras, it won races and a championship with Benetton (including Michael Schumacher's first wins and championship), as well as a race victory in 1999 with the Stewart team and then a final win under rather chaotic conditions at the 2003 Brazilian Grand Prix with the Jordan team.
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