If the brand enters the hypercar class, it will likely partner with a specialist motorsport firm

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The Blue Oval, which is returning to the 24 Hours of Le Mans with the Ford Mustang GT3, is considering a hybrid hypercar entry into the top class of endurance racing, according to a new report.

Ford has renewed its interest in motorsport in recent years under Jim Farley, competing in series such as the GT3 class of the World Endurance Championship (WEC), WRC, NASCAR, the Dakar Rally and Australia’s Supercars series. It has also produced a number of wild motorsport one-offs, including the insane F-150 Lightning Supertruck.

Read: Aston Martin’s Valkyrie Le Mans Hypercar Revealed During Testing

A class that it does not compete in but is growing in popularity is the Le Mans Hypercar (LMH) series or Le Mans Daytona h (LMDh) series, which would allow it to compete with brands such as Ferrari, Cadillac, Porsche, BMW, Alpine, Lamborghini, Toyota and Peugeot.

When asked recently Car If Ford is interested in the hybrid hypercar world, Mark Rushbrook, Ford Performance’s motorsports division manager, acknowledges the power of sports car racing and the recent convergence of rules sets makes the idea even more appealing.

“Motorsport in general, globally and across all the different disciplines is very strong – they’re all strong. But I think, comparatively, sportscar racing has really improved over the last three years and a lot of that is due to the global unification,” he said. “GTE and GT LM have merged with GT3 – so we now have a single focus for GT racing, which helped us make sense of having the Mustang GT3 – and the same thing at the prototype (level), which in many ways hasn’t really merged because there’s still the LMdH formula or the LMH formula, but at least there’s the ability to race them together, so that’s been a great merger.”

Rushbrook said Ford is looking at LMH and LMDh but would not say whether the brand has a preference.

Interestingly, Rushbrook revealed that Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner approached Ford for a partnership on the RB17 hypercar, but decided that Ford’s “ambitions” in that area had already been met by the GT MkIV. Therefore, if Ford does enter hypercar racing, it won’t be with Red Bull, but likely with another specialist motorsport team.