Former Audi Sport race engineer Leena Gade has signed with Ford’s forthcoming Hypercar program, adding one of endurance racing’s most accomplished engineers to the Blue Oval’s growing effort ahead of its planned FIA World Endurance Championship debut.
Ford Racing confirmed Gade as one of several key hires as it prepares to launch a factory entry in the Hypercar class of the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2027, where the company will field a new LMDh prototype built around an ORECA chassis and powered by a V8 engine.
For aficionados of Audi endurance racing era, Gade’s name is a familiar one. During her tenure as a race engineer with Audi Sport Team Joest, she helped guide the brand to overall victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2011, 2012 and 2014, becoming the first female race engineer to win the event.
Those triumphs came during Audi’s dominant LMP1 era with cars such as the R18 TDI and R18 e-tron quattro, when the brand’s diesel and hybrid prototypes defined the cutting edge of endurance racing technology.
2011, her first of those wins, may be the most memorable. At the time, she was a rookie lead engineer leading a team of rookie drivers with Andre Lotterer, Benoit Treluyer and Marcel Fassler. Their #2 R18 TDI, dubbed Red Sonja for its identifying red accents, found themselves the last Audi running against dominant competition from rival Peugeot. They’d hold on to win, an effort that was immortalized in the second Truth in 24 documentary produced by Audi and NFL Films.
RESUME BUILT IN ENDURANCE RACING
Following Audi’s exit from the LMP1 class at the end of the 2016 season, Gade continued her career across multiple programs within the broader endurance racing ecosystem.
She spent time with Bentley Motorsport’s Continental GT3 program before moving into prototype racing again, reuniting with Team Joest to support Multimatic, where she worked on the Mazda DPi program in IMSA competition.
Gade also served as president of the FIA GT Commission, contributing to the governance and technical development of global GT racing during a period of rapid expansion for the category.
Her combination of hands-on race engineering, prototype development experience and leadership roles in motorsport governance makes her one of the most versatile figures in modern endurance racing.
HER ROLE AT FORD
Gade will serve as race engineer within Ford’s Hypercar project, working alongside other experienced hires including Jean-Philippe Sarrazin, previously involved with the Porsche Penske Motorsport program that captured the 2024 WEC drivers’ championship.
The new engineering group will report to trackside engineering manager Grant Clarke as Ford builds the technical structure for its return to top-tier endurance racing.
Ford’s Hypercar entry is part of the brand’s broader strategy to return to the top level of Le Mans competition, where it famously secured four consecutive overall victories from 1966 through 1969 with the GT40.
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