Elite squad of Ford Performance test drivers helps make all Fords better
20 Aug 2018|1,342 views
Donning a fire suit and helmet, strapping into a high-powered race car and taking it onto a test track to top out at more than 306km/h is part of an average workday for an elite squad of Ford's high-performance driving engineers. These engineer drivers, known as tier-four test drivers, deploy their finely honed skills to take Ford Performance vehicles to their limits of traction, power and speed in order to ultimately apply their learnings to developing the company's mainstream vehicles.
"Not only are these elite Ford Performance drivers the best of the best, many of their peers believe they have the company's coolest jobs in that they get to bring their enthusiasm, technical know-how and racing expertise to work every day," said Ben Maher, Technical Specialist, Global Driver Safety and Leader of Ford's Internal Driver Qualification programme.
Of the more than 10,000 specially-rated test drive engineers at Ford, only about 20 at any moment have completed the rigorous training and certification to qualify for tier-four status. To keep the team competitive, Maher leads a peer committee that identifies and nominates candidates from among the stable of tier-three drivers who have demonstrated readiness for the next level of training.
Donning a fire suit and helmet, strapping into a high-powered race car and taking it onto a test track to top out at more than 306km/h is part of an average workday for an elite squad of Ford's high-performance driving engineers. These engineer drivers, known as tier-four test drivers, deploy their finely honed skills to take Ford Performance vehicles to their limits of traction, power and speed in order to ultimately apply their learnings to developing the company's mainstream vehicles.
"Not only are these elite Ford Performance drivers the best of the best, many of their peers believe they have the company's coolest jobs in that they get to bring their enthusiasm, technical know-how and racing expertise to work every day," said Ben Maher, Technical Specialist, Global Driver Safety and Leader of Ford's Internal Driver Qualification programme.
Of the more than 10,000 specially-rated test drive engineers at Ford, only about 20 at any moment have completed the rigorous training and certification to qualify for tier-four status. To keep the team competitive, Maher leads a peer committee that identifies and nominates candidates from among the stable of tier-three drivers who have demonstrated readiness for the next level of training.
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