Is Gran Turismo star Jann Mardenborough heading for Le Mans return with Ford?

For Jann Mardenborough, it dates back to a self-promise in 2021.

The 2011 GT Academy winner was at a crossroads in life, having just departed the Nissan Super GT programme, which left him without a full-time drive for the year.

It marked not only the end of a five-year stint contesting Japan’s top sportscar championship, but potentially the end of a professional career that spanned a decade. His options were slim, the world was still battling COVID-19, but Mardenborough was determined to force his way “back to the top of motorsport”.

The journey was obviously tough. Mardenborough revealed times of self-doubt, and the best he could muster was a simulator role for the Nissan Formula E team across 2021 and 2022.

But now, after three one-off races since 2023, which Mardenborough believes kept his “foot in the door”, the 33-year-old has finally landed a full-time racing seat once again. He will contest the 2025 GT World Challenge Europe season aboard a factory-backed Ford Mustang GT3 alongside co-drivers Thomas Drouet and Arjun Maini.

“It’s taken longer than I anticipated,” Mardenborough tells Motorsport.com, “it would have been nice to have done it a bit quicker, but I am proud that I managed to find the right people to surround myself with to put a package together where I can show my performance.

“I’ve still got ambitions and goals I’d like to achieve, and I’ve got more to do. There was time to really reflect within these four years to sit down and ask myself: ‘Do I want to continue to do this? Do I want to continue to push through the hard times of pain and rejection?’ – and yes…it’s always been yes.”

Mardenborough has already had a solid career up to now, claiming wins in British GT, the GP3 Series, Super GT and Japanese Formula 3. Let’s also not forget his class podium on debut at the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2013.

But what Mardenborough is arguably most known for is the Gran Turismo film released in 2023 that is based on his career. Because the Cardiff native has a story like no other.

All he ever wanted was to become a professional racer, yet his family was unable to fund karting and the other traditional routes into motorsport. This left online racing as the only avenue for a young Mardenborough to keep in touch with his passion.

And it initially appeared that said passion would hold him back in a way. He headed off to study motorsport engineering at university, but soon dropped out with no idea of what to do for a future career, thinking driving was out of the question.

He spoke of a parallel universe where he is “designing furniture for DFS”. That could easily have been a reality had it not been for the GT Academy, a sim racing competition he applied for during his gap year.

The goal of the competition was simple: to discover a future racer via online events, in which Mardenborough overcame over 90,000 other sim racing enthusiasts to become champion.

His prize? A professional contract with Nissan to kickstart a long and successful career providing opportunities that a teenage Mardenborough never thought was possible.

So it’s quite the story, one that has inspired plenty of others. As Mardenborough enters a “completely new chapter”, he’s aware that it’s not just him this time, but many others who are hoping to emulate the Welshman.

“The situation is quite different to 2011,” he says, “because I have many people that look up to me.

Mardenborough wants to live up to his newfound role model status

Photo by: Paragraph5-4Pros

“It always surprises me, the messages that I get – especially from the younger audience – people that have got into motorsport because they’ve watched the film. So that is something which I’m very blessed with.

“When things are difficult, I can pull out and go ‘OK, it’s not just you now, it’s other people that look at you, so suck it up and get on with it’.”

The pressure to deliver is therefore on Mardenborough, starting with this weekend’s six-hour season-opener at Circuit Paul Ricard. He is “confident that I can get on the pace straight away”, but perhaps more importantly, Mardenborough is at an organisation that feels like a genuine home.

“I’ve moved into a new environment with a manufacturer wanting to make its name loud in sportscars and GT racing,” he states.

“So there’s room for me to grow. I feel I have value that I can give, not only as speed, but as experience as well, into a team and package that doesn’t want to do a one-year thing, they want to compete with big boys. They give me a lot of confidence that they want to win.”

Mardenborough will share this factory Ford Mustang GT3 with Thomas Drouet and Arjun Maini

Photo by: Haupt Racing Team

The opportunities that a successful campaign in GT World Challenge could bring are endless. But there is only one goal on Mardenborough’s mind, and that is to officially become “a Ford factory driver”.

Ford has recently been making headlines in the sportscar world. Its history within the space is well documented, four consecutive wins at Le Mans in the late 1960s for example, but it hopes the story is not yet over.

That’s because the American marque has already announced that it will return to Circuit de la Sarthe to fight for overall honours in 2027, as part of an LMDh programme in the World Endurance Championship – something that is “absolutely” on Mardenborough’s mind.

“Let’s not beat around the bush, that’s where I want to be,” he concludes. “It’s why I got into the programme in the first place. Of course, people talk of the push to possibly be doing Hypercar, so that is a ladder.

“I believe I have the credentials, experience and speed to be a factory driver. That’s where I feel I can find a lot of value, and this is a good place for me to be right now.

“I can only take it day by day. It’s out there, I don’t know how it’s going to be achieved, what route I’ll take, but as long as I’m doing my best – on track, off track – then what will be, will be.”

Will the upcoming GTWCE campaign act as a springboard towards Le Mans for the Briton?

Photo by: Haupt Racing Team