Insight: Why Gradient Racing is Going "All In" With Mustang GT3

John Dagys speaks with Gradient Racing team principal Andris Laivins on the reason for the team's switch to the Blue Oval...

To say that Gradient Racing’s recent announcement that it will campaign a Ford Mustang GT3 in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship beginning next year was a long time coming could be considered an understatement.

Team principal Andris Laivins started asking about a customer Mustang GT3 even before the program was officially announced in January 2022, a full two years before the Multimatic-built car made its competition debut in this year’s Rolex 24 at Daytona.

"I said, 'Guys, if you're working on this, I really want to get involved, whenever it happens,” Laivins tells Sportscar365. "The real process of trying to get one of these cars started late last year. It was a long process. We're a small team, so [it was about also] making sure we can fund and purchase; that is a big project.”

After six years campaigning Acura NSX GT3s, first in Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS before stepping up to the WeatherTech Championship in 2020, Laivins’ tight-knit Texas-based outfit has been ever-present in top-level sports car racing competition, flying the flag for Acura.

But that will change in 2025, with the NSX GT3 Evo22 being retired from WeatherTech Championship competition, opening the door for Gradient to forge a new alliance with Ford Performance with its new GT3 challenger.

"We've made our business out of having long, consistent relationships with manufacturers,” explains Laivins. '“Not that anybody has been paying us a ton of money to go racing or anything but the working relationship with the manufacturer is always an important part of me being able to go do a good job.

"Honda and Acura, we've had a really great relationship with them. They've been a longtime partner and we've supported each other on things. 

"Knowing there was a sunset coming for the NSX's competitive life in IMSA, from a road car standpoint and everything else that the NSX was going to reach a natural point of change in this class [led to this].

"For us, we knew there was an appropriate time that we would do something different after the NSX and wanting to be really ahead of that process and ahead IMSA's entry process and other things, we wanted to make that decision next and not be here in August or September hunting for somebody with a car.”

Announced earlier this month, Laivins says Gradient’s move to a Mustang GT3 has been a long thought out process that took in a number of factors.

"When we're going to change cars, we don't want to change into a car that's late in its lifespan,” he says. “We want to be in early. We don't want to be getting a car that's on its third Evo or whatever. 

"A lot of engineers disagree with me on this but I wanted a front-engined car. In our experience, with this series and with this tire, a lot of times I felt like we were at a disadvantage to cars that have a front engine.

"Two bigger things, I didn't want to be customer No. 100 of a brand. That's not a slight to any of the amazing brands that do have 100 customer cars out there. But for the way our business operates, I want to be part of the process.

"We were actually Acura's first true customer. Everything we learned doing that, I wanted to be early somewhere.

"I also have a lot of friends at Multimatic. When we sit around and talk about how we want to conduct ourselves, I want to be racing with people that I have a collaborative relationship with and is not just cashing my checks and patting me on my back. 

"I haven't had that experience with any other brand, and certainly not with Honda/Acura, but when you look around the paddock, for me, being able to have peers on the other side of the car equation is really helpful."

While the Mustang GT3 has yet to claim its first win in global competition, Laivins isn’t concerned by the numbers or early achievements but is in fact relishing the opportunity to play a part in the car’s development, much like his team did with the NSX GT3.

"I started off building cars; that was my entry point into racing,” he explains. “We don't get to have that fun with factory-built cars.

"I like the idea that we're going to be doing some problem-solving and helping everybody make things go faster, not that any of the parties involved need my help, but at least I get to be part of that process.

"Some people have asked, 'Oh the Mustang isn't leading the championship right now and winning every race. Are you sure that's the car you want?' 

"I go, 'Absolutely.' Every year there's cars that are good and less good and are early or late in their development cycles. For us, choosing a new manufacturer, car and platform to get affiliated with, it's a multi-year commitment.

"With any make or model, there's going to be up-and-down years. I'm not scared by any of that at all. If you're chasing the hot car every year, you will never have a good relationship with a manufacturer. 

"From my standpoint, like with our relationship with Honda and Acura, because we were committed to being a partner of theirs and racing their product and raising our hand to say, 'Yes, any time you need something.’ We did a lot of little projects behind the scenes, helping with other project cars and stuff.

"We built the SRO TC cars that ran over there for a bunch of years.

"There's projects like that that won't happen if you're just a random customer that's racing a random car one year at a time. For us, as a small business, we want to have a good, working relationship with whatever brand we're racing.”

Gradient’s involvement with Ford began has already begun with the operation of several entries in the new Mustang Challenge series, along with an informal partnership with fellow Ford outfit McCumbee McAleer Racing, which fields Mustangs in both Mustang Challenge and Michelin Pilot Challenge.

"It's the same situation there,” says Laivins. “Our alignment with a brand is intentional. We've got a nice mutually beneficial situation which is if I'm approached by somebody who's not ready for GT3, I have a very direct connection that I can send them to who can run a GT4 car. If they develop to the point where they're happy over there, we're the first place [to go GT3 racing].

"It's not like there's a formal arrangement between our teams but Stevan [McAleer] and Chad [McCumbee] have been great friends of mine for a decade. They're like brothers to me. 

"When we talk about any of this stuff between our teams, it's like, 'Oh yeah, you work on that, we'll work on this. And if there's any cross-over, we know what we're doing already.’

"When I put my Ford hat on now, it's like, 'Hey, we're all in.' Our race programs are Ford race programs and this is our future for the next how-many years. It's easy to say that. 

"I'm running a business and if somebody approaches me and they want to run something else in a different category, in a different brand of car and it makes sense for our business, of course we'll always entertain that.

"But when we have the freedom to do some decision-making, the idea that you want to be good and friendly and have a mutually beneficial relationship with a manufacturer is something that's very important to me."

While currently fielding McAleer and Sheena Monk in its Acura this season, Laivins says he’s still working out the driver lineup for next year’s GTD campaign, especially given the increasing level of competition in the class.

“We're actively talking to a pretty broad spectrum of people that are interested in being involved,” he says. “We don't have anything to announce on that front. There's a lot of moving parts.

"GTD programs are very big now. This is not a small feeder class in IMSA. This is really big, serious racing. I think the days of individual entities funding entire cars are long gone. For a company like ours trying to put a race season together involves making multiple people agree to do the same thing at the same time. It's a complex project.”

While the landscape has certainly changed, one of IMSA’s stalwart entrants appears more than ready to take on its next chapter.

Photos: Gradient Racing & Wes Duenkel/Ford