Ford announced its return to Le Mans in June 2015, at the circuit itself, with a four-car factory effort built around the newly revealed second-generation Ford GT road car. The race version, known internally as the Ford GT LM GTE-Pro, was developed in partnership with Multimatic and designed from the outset as a competition vehicle. The road car's aerodynamic philosophy — low drag, a teardrop profile, active rear wing, twin-turbocharged 3.5-litre EcoBoost V6 — translated directly into the GTE specification, which required extensive homologation work to meet the Balance of Performance regulations shared with Porsche, Ferrari, and Aston Martin in the GTE-Pro class.
Ford Chip Ganassi Racing operated two cars in IMSA and two in the WEC, fielding separate but related driver lineups across the programmes. The IMSA squad ran a full season schedule, while the WEC pair contested a reduced calendar that included the 24 Hours of Le Mans and selected rounds.
The GTE-Pro car debuted in competition at the 2016 24 Hours of Daytona in January, finishing seventh and ninth in the GTLM class. Its Le Mans debut in June 2016 produced a celebrated result: the number 68 car of Dirk Muller, Joey Hand, and Sebastian Bourdais won the GTE-Pro class, fifty years to the day after the GT40's triumph in 1966. The sister number 67 car, campaigned in IMSA by Ryan Briscoe and Richard Westbrook, also scored well across the season.
In 2017 the programme continued in both championships. At the Silverstone WEC opener, the number 67 car took victory. At Le Mans that year, fifty years after Ford's 1967 win, the number 67 finished as runner-up in GTE-Pro. The WEC cars also achieved back-to-back class victories at the 6 Hours of Fuji and the 6 Hours of Shanghai during the 2016 season, with the number 67 winning both rounds and the number 66 following in second place.
The IMSA programme produced consistent championship results through 2016 to 2019. Ryan Briscoe and Richard Westbrook, who shared the number 67 car for IMSA full seasons, finished second in the GTLM Drivers' Championship in both 2016 and 2018. Scott Dixon joined the IMSA pair as a third driver at selected endurance rounds, and the trio took third place in the GTE-Pro class at the 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans. In 2018 Briscoe and Westbrook won the GTLM category of the 24 Hours of Daytona, completing 783 laps.
The GTE-Pro variant retained the road car's twin-turbocharged 3.5-litre EcoBoost V6, tuned to comply with GTE regulations and Balance of Performance adjustments throughout the programme. The active rear wing from the production car was adapted for race use, and the pushrod suspension philosophy carried over to the competition version. Carbon fibre bodywork and a full safety-cell roll cage replaced the road car's carbon monocoque. The aerodynamic package centred on the signature flying buttress rear fenders that channelled air over the tail, a feature unique to the Ford GT among GTE contenders.
Ford Chip Ganassi Racing announced at the end of the 2019 season that the factory programme would not continue into 2020. The campaign ran for four years across two major championships, accumulating the Le Mans class victory in 2016 as its headline result along with multiple race wins and championship podiums in IMSA. The programme is widely regarded as one of the most symbolically significant factory motorsport returns in recent history, timed precisely to honour the fiftieth anniversary of Ford's original Le Mans dominance.