Mark Rushbrook and the Ford Performance team are coming off a championship-winning 2024 season and have already started 2025 with a podium finish at the Dakar Rally and a class win at Daytona.
Ford Performance is marking the beginning of the 2025 season around the world on Thursday, Jan. 30. The team is hosting an exclusive, immersive event showcasing the engineering and innovation behind our championship vehicles and the unveiling of the plans for the 2025 season across all series of motorsports. Stay tuned to @FordOnline and @BlueOvalNow for all the day’s big news, as well as an evening livestream of the event featuring Ford Performance drivers and team leaders starting at 7:45 p.m.
We spoke with Global Director, Ford Performance Motorsports Mark Rushbrook for his outlook on the season as well as some of his best memories of the 2024 campaign. He also touched on how racing improves our production vehicles. His edited responses are below:
Q: What Ford Performance accomplishment(s) were you most proud of last season?
There were so many, but I guess what I am most proud of is the team behind the races and the victories. It may be a cliché, but racing is the ultimate team sport. To win any race, everything needs to be perfect. … Above all, the team has to be dedicated to the pursuit of excellence, and we saw many examples of that in 2024, from our podium at Le Mans to winning the NASCAR Cup Championship for a third time in a row.
Q: What are you most looking forward to in the 2025 season?
We have so many exciting challenges ahead of us. We have already tackled Dakar and scored a podium in our first time out, as well as a huge result this past weekend at Daytona where we took a class win with the Mustang GT3. But we also have Mustang taking on at least 130 different races in one calendar year, which is a record for us. Then you factor in our off-road challenges from King of the Hammers to the iconic Baja 1000, which allow us to test our vehicles in the toughest environments for the benefit of our customers. And we are heading back to Pikes Peak with our latest Mustang Mach-E-inspired EV demonstrator to once again push the boundaries of technology in the pursuit of learnings for the future.
Q: What are some examples of improvements we’ve made to Ford production vehicles that we initially discovered through our Ford Performance racing?
I think the best example is the FOX shocks we have on all our Raptor products around the world as well as some of our Bronco mainstream products. When we first developed Raptor, we knew that our prospective customers would demand the toughest and most capable truck to take on the toughest environments. So, the best way to develop this was through racing, and in particular, the Baja 1000. … If they could soak up the punishment there, we knew they would be right for our customers and that proved to be the case.
