M-Sport Ford World Rally Teams

[trykmann]

Horrible season.

I think the puma is the worst car they have built regarding reliability, only one joker used during the season for bigger update and nothing more

And the sad thing is that the next season promises to be even more worse with their lineup

There is a lot of talk about young drivers having a possibility in M-sport to drive a Rally1 car. I am not sure if this is even a good decision regarding their career. It is difficult to estimate their speed, if they are given an underdeveloped car and don't have enough amount of testing before the events. In these situations the times are not coming, they are being pushed over their limits and accidents start to happen.

Compare Breen in the Puma to this years Sweden - a completely different driver. For example if next year would Mikkelsen drive the Puma, he would probably be worse than Tänak this year. Then there would be an ongoing discussion how he is not worthy a Rally1, he is slow and there are better drivers out there.

[seb_sh]

There is a lot of talk about young drivers having a possibility in M-sport to drive a Rally1 car. I am not sure if this is even a good decision regarding their career. It is difficult to estimate their speed, if they are given an underdeveloped car and don't have enough amount of testing before the events. In these situations the times are not coming, they are being pushed over their limits and accidents start to happen.

Compare Breen in the Puma to this years Sweden - a completely different driver. For example if next year would Mikkelsen drive the Puma, he would probably be worse than Tänak this year. Then there would be an ongoing discussion how he is not worthy a Rally1, he is slow and there are better drivers out there.

If I had money to buy a rally1 drive I would take the spare Toyota when it's available.

[Danny0405]

If I had money to buy a rally1 drive I would take the spare Toyota when it's available.

I think things are not that simple.
Indeed, except a very few professional drivers paid for it, all drivers are bringing money to run, either personal or through a sponsorship; the question is more about how much money do you have so it defines what you can do.

For Toyota, it’s only customer-stuff car so if you want to have the car, you have to pay all the costs (and probably even a bit of extra); else Toyota don’t run the car.
For M-Sport, at least the first two cars, it’s different; M-Sport will run 2 cars anyway because they want to keep their status of manufacturer… but they ask drivers to bring also some money (or through sponsorship) to contribute to the budget of running the team but not paying all the costs.

To sum up, for a young driver, if you want to drive a Toyota, you have to pay all the costs + an extra.
If you want to drive one of the 2 M-Sport manufacturer cars, you may only pay 50% of the costs of running the car (M-Sport managing the rest).

Well, in the end, it means having a M-Sport car is probably 2 or 3 times cheaper than having a Toyota… well, it’s a big difference of budget needed, all the more than M-Sport young drivers are not biggest talent in general (Greensmith, Fourmaux, Loubet, Munster, …) … and in addition to that, when it comes to Toyota, you can’t totally decide what’s you program as it’s up to Ogier and teams decisions mainly. in the end, Ogier only miss 5 rallies this season so it’s perfectly understandable that the car was poorly rented; I think the only guy who could have an interest and the sponsorship needed to rent it is Solberg (as Ogier is not there for snow and fast gravel rallies).

[rp]

If Fourmaux and Loubet are two main drivers next year even reaching the top ten and finish the event will be hard to achieve. Only hope to get some results that Mikkelsen is there.

[CeskyOndra]

Mikkelsen will DEFINITELY stay with Škoda.

[Fast Eddie WRC]

Horrible season.

I think the puma is the worst car they have built regarding reliability, only one joker used during the season for bigger update and nothing more

And the sad thing is that the next season promises to be even more worse with their lineup

The problem is the 'bottom line' ie. money.

M-Sport just hasn't got it as a part-factory team and cant compete with the multiple €millions the huge corporations of Toyota and Hyundai can throw at their WRC cars & teams.

They were juuuust able to hang in there with the WRC car, but the Rally1 era has exacerbated the problem massively with all the complications of hybrid. Their future at this level of the sport looks more bleak than I can ever remember.

[skarderud]

It is a problem with 2,5 manu's in the WRC, i see 2 scenarios

1: keep todays, hopefully 1 more attend, but probably not, the WRC serms not that healty.

2: Run Rally2's as topclass, the manu's (probably) leave, less money, less spectacle.
But, we can get rid of the manu-rule to build cars, some serious private tuners will build and run cars, some of them on behalf of manu's, others with some support of importers.
The WRC will probably run more like ERC, more european-based championship, but it will be more interesting sporting-wise.

We will probably loose the WRC+/RallyTV, or will RB be involved without the manu's involvment?
I think so, they sponsor much smaller and less interesting sports than rally with live broadcasts

I don't know, but i'm not shure it is total darkness if the manu's leave.
Maybe the cars has to be a C-segment based set of rules instead of the B-segment(yaris/skoda) they use today?

And i don't think Hyundai and Toyota just leave, maybe downscaling a bit, but i don't think todays WRC is good for marketing anyway.

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[EstWRC]

I just can’t believe what you have written point two onwards

[skarderud]

I just can’t believe what you have written point two onwards

Good for you.

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[becher]

The problem is the 'bottom line' ie. money.

M-Sport just hasn't got it as a part-factory team and cant compete with the multiple €millions the huge corporations of Toyota and Hyundai can throw at their WRC cars & teams.

They were juuuust able to hang in there with the WRC car, but the Rally1 era has exacerbated the problem massively with all the complications of hybrid. Their future at this level of the sport looks more bleak than I can ever remember.

The world car was much more complicated than the Rally1 with a no frills spec motor generator unit. It's a box that the teams install and programmed a few maps for it.