Ford Focus ST-R to Make Racing Debut in Grand Am Series

The Ford Focus ST-R will make its racing debut at Daytona International Speedway this coming Friday in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge ST class. Although the car resembles the stock Ford Focus, it has been purposefully designed by Ford Racing to be a track ready car.

The Focus ST-R will feature Ford’s 2.0L Ecoboost engine, a full FIA approved roll cage, updated brakes and track-tuned suspension to set it apart from the stock Focus and Focus ST models. The ST-R was developed by a partnership between Ford Racing and Multimatic Motorsports, who have a history together developing the performance line of Mustangs. “Having delivered the successful Mustang FR500C and Boss 302R production-based race cars, we have a well-established process with how to develop such cars with Ford Racing. We employ the same approach for each – we start with the production car and go through each subsystem on the car and change what is needed (and allowed) to provide a competitive race car,” said Larry Holt, the team principal at Multimatic Motorsports.

The Focus ST-R joins quite a few turnkey ready racers from Ford, it stands along side the likes of the Mustang FR500C, Mustang FR500S, Mustang Cobra Jet, Boss 302R and Boss 302S, all of which are available to order for the professional racer and amateur enthusiast alike. The director of Ford racing, Jamie Allison said “People who buy one will get a fully prepared race car that will only need communications equipment and the customer’s decals to go racing. Because of this, we’ve already had significant interest in this vehicle from numerous established race teams.”

Ford is making a push into the racing world with the Fusion running in NASCAR and the RallyCross racing Fiesta, with the Focus ST-R being the newest addition to Ford’s strategy to support motor sports development.

Watch a video here of the Ford ST-R out on the track.