I've never bat an eye at the Mustang Gr. 4 even back when I was actively racing, simply because it had never really been good for much of anything in the nonsensical Gr. 4 category, dominated either by a MR hatchback that doesn't even belong in GT4, with enough downforce and fuel economy to burrow its way through to the other side of the globe, or front wheel drive hatchbacks BoPped to have enough power to warp their front axle behind the rear. To say then, that the Mustang Gr. 4 hasn't ever been competitive in this nonsensical category it was built from the ground up to compete in, is somehow both very and not at all telling at the same time.
Look, writing is hard and racing is rife with politics, okay?
Extreme outliers aside, I do enjoy myself a lot of Gr. 4 racing, if not for the sheer variety of shapes and sizes of cars that are allowed in it, but also how meticulously close they are to the production cars they're based off of. When I first heard through a message that we're racing a "Gr. 4 Ford", I struggled to remember what Ford's representation in FIA-GT was. After all, a Mustang isn't exactly the first car that comes to anyone's mind when they think of a sporty, nimble car, is it? It was only after I had dug out the list of eligible cars for Gr. 4 on Gran Turismo's website did I remember: "oh yeah, they have the Mustang". This remembrance is very quickly followed up by that of the realisation that I'd be racing it the following week, which quickly elicited a thought of, "eww".
I mean, come on, tell me this thing doesn't look ridiculous. It's a pony car. It's meant to look good and go fast in a straight line, nothing else. Its body shape looks like it has every intent to smash into oncoming air with vicarious ferocity rather than gracefully cutting through it. Screwing aerodynamic parts like canards, splitters, diffusers, and a big wing on a Mustang is automotive satire on the nose, literally and figuratively. Telling it to handle as neutrally and obediently as a Gr. 4 car just because it's a 4 wheeled vehicle for the road is as ridiculous a notion as asking me to write a legally valid and recognised will just because I type words on a screen often. I might start writing wills nonetheless though, because desperate people in a rush will grasp at any straw in an emergency when they're part of a now ill-advised crowd about to get mown over by a Mustang leaving a parking lot, just as Ford doesn't really have any better an option than the Mustang to represent them in Gr. 4. They are the company that has announced that they will stop selling all traditional cars except the Focus and the Mustang, after all. The cost of a GT alone might be enough to fund your own amateur racing team for an entire season fielding a Mustang. What else are they supposed to do Gr. 4 in, an Explorer? A F-150? A Focus? Given how ridiculously overpowered FF hatchbacks are in Gr. 4 currently, perhaps they should've.
Honestly, the only thing I could look forward to this week was that at least the Mustang won't threaten to make me deaf for two more weeks. And I'll be damned, the engineers and mechanics over at FIA-GT have managed to tame and button down the Mustang to handle like a Gr. 4 car should: obedient, neutral, straightforward, never intimidating, and never surprising. Of course, whether that's a win or not is still up for debate. And before you ask, no. There is no winning with me. Some cars just don't belong on a racetrack. And that's fine, all the way until they are shoehorned onto a racetrack, and I have to drive it.
Discounting the egregious outliers of Gr. 4, namely the FFs and the Mégane Trophy (ever thought the Mégane would be so outlandish it'd appear on a list twice?), the Mustang isn't a bad car at all in Gr. 4. In a "beginner" class that is GT4 and Gr. 4, cars are all rather easy and straightforward to drive as aforementioned, but as a result of this, the cars are all rather indistinct from each other, with only tyre and fuel longevity splitting the hairs between them. Even so, the Mustang is a bit of a rebel: it has quite good straight line speed discounting the FFs, but it pays the price in being quite a fat horse to rein around corners. Even with a full tank of fuel, the first thing that strikes anyone driving the Mustang is how nose heavy the damn thing is, shockingly so for a Gr. 4 car and a 2 door coupé. Despite being an FR, the front tyres will scream torture and tyranny if you attempt to wrestle it into the apex of any basic corner, and I suspect the front tyres won't really last as a result.
The nose heaviness of this car may result in predictable understeer, especially on power, but it does at least mean that the Mustang Gr. 4 is an extremely stable drive. The rear end, in spite of feeling airy and numb, will never give you any problems, especially with a full tank of fuel as ballast. The only way you could even get the rear end to peek out in the Mustang is if you're a bit boorish with the car in 1st, which is never used on track, and 2nd. Downshifting early into second will get the car hairy for a moment, but the car is so disgustingly stable it'd almost sort itself out like a FF, whether you want it to or not. Yes, I'm still describing a Mustang... I think?
One other nitpick is that the braking felt oddly vague in this car, as the car really didn't seem to want to turn under any sort of braking, all the way until you only have the weight of a toenail over the brake pedal, and that's when the nose of the car will suddenly slice into a corner. In a way, it felt like walking barefoot in a swamp: you just never really know what you're gonna find each time you put your foot down.
Between the independent rear axle and the stable handling, about the only recogniseable trait on this "closest to the production Mustang race car" is its engine. True to its American muscle car roots (and irritatingly for a racing car), the Mustang does need to be short shifted slightly to make the most of the powerband, at about 500rpm before its 7,000rpm redline, which the optimistic among us might claim to be a fuel saving measure in this hopelessly gas guzzling engine. Annoyingly, the shift lights aren't calibrated to fully fill when you're supposed to shift, instead being all stiff and sciency and filling near redline, meaning you'll have to dedicate a bit of concentration to break what should be by now a habit of any racing driver and consciously short shift it. And I thought shift lights were supposed to help a racing driver. Being an almighty American V8 making heaps of torque with barely any revs also means that the car is very receptive to short shifting to save fuel, especially coupled with its shockingly low gearing. Because of its low end torque and even lower gearing, you'll be taking Eau Rouge in 6th flat out, and without the pressure of a stopwatch or competitors around you, even 4th through Stavelot wouldn't feel amiss, when most cars take 2nd through it.
Overall, the Mustang has many faults as a Gr. 4 car, but it's not bad, per se. There are entire swarms of cars in Gr. 4 worse than it, namely the AWD cars with neither the power of the FFs for sprint races, the cornering prowess of the RWD cars, or the tyre longevity to compete in endurance racing. The Mustang is certainly serviceable, but you have so many better options in Gr. 4. For close comparison, the C7 Corvette Gr. 4 is better balanced, has more gears, and, in my opinion, sounds better and looks better as well. For driving pleasure or eye candy, I'd take almost any other RWD car in Gr. 4. For these reasons, the Mustang Gr. 4 is a Beater in my books.
But that's not to say it can't provide ultra racing ;)
This week's turn out may be quite small, but I think the races are, in their own way, quite special. The quality certainly didn't take a dip, and the liveries were a touching display of celebrating life.
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