Dearborn, Michigan – Ford and its brand Motorcraft are understood to have increased their involvement in Formula Virtual both technically and sponsorship wise. At the conclusion of the 2018 Formula Virtual season, some will have noticed that FIRST Motorsport dropped its Valvoline sponsorship. This followed an overall poor season for the FIRST and Ford pair, which led to a complete rethink of all of the engineering philosophies on the car as well as different logistical philosophies.
From this Ford concluded that one way it could improve engine performance and reliability long term was to take more control over engine component production. As a result, they reached out to their internal oil group branded as Motorcraft to develop different oil formulas for their Formula Virtual engine program instead of contracting Valvoline. Similarly, other components previously outsourced such as spark plugs, DFI injectors, and valve springs are also being designed and manufactured within Ford’s FV engine group. Initially, doing these things in house caused teething issues both on the design and manufacturing side but long-term having control over these components will only give Ford more potential to succeed. It is also understood that the FV engine group was given more autonomy organizationally going into 2020 to try to distance it from the bureaucracy associated with a large automotive OEM while trying to maintain the important technical links (both informationally and resource-wise) with the road car side of the company. In addition to developing the oils for Fords FV engine and drivetrain, Motorcraft is also joining the series to market itself to race fans. Motorcraft makes a wide variety of automotive parts, both OEM and aftermarket, mostly for Ford/Lincoln/Mercury vehicles. To market Motorcraft, Ford has purchased additional sponsorship space on the FIRST cars to display Motorcraft branding. Last season Ford made a significant improvement in power and reliability from 2019. With stability in terms of engine platform and customer teams (AMR, FIRST, and North Star) going into 2020, it expected that Ford is in good shape to continue to evolve its engine platform into a future FV race winning engine platform.
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