Ford Fiesta RS WRC

[quote="Kaffi"]IsAs we heard somewhere in his interview Wilson jr already drove some 2.000km in the FIESTA WRC ?!?
Ok in the beginning it is mainly about testing reliability, but how do you test reliability with a guy who has no clue about driving to the limit ?
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Don't fall into the trap of believing that Matt W can't drive on the limit. The bulk of the testing will be in Grizedale which he knows blindfold and for which all sorts of comparison times in various conditions are available, not just from M-Sport work but actual rally stage times. It would be interesting to see the top 3 fastest times on the longest combination that is used

I hear your point and still I say any top driver will be on another planet compared to Wilson jr, as it has shown on every Special stage run in the WRC in the past five years (except super specials), no matter how well Wilson knows the road. lets take Wales which he has done the most, at no time has he been able to rival with top guys, ever, not anywhere even on a stage like cricken or halfway which I am sure he knows blindfold as well.

Lets not kid ourselves here people, Wilson jr will NEVER be on par with the MCRAE, BURNS, SAINZ, LOEB, GRONHOLM, MARTIN, SORDO, MAKINEN, HIRVONEN, LATVALA, etc...

Wilson jr is AS good as his last rally... usually between 1 and 2 sec per km behind the leader, and sometimes but very rare under 1 sec when the roads suit him and his car a little better.

Just you wait, he will be champion after this five year plan. :s pin:

I highly doubt wilson is used as a DEVELOPER driver.....

he probably just racks up the miles in the car to see what breaks and what stays in place. Driving to the limit is one thing and if wilson runs a road 100 times i think he has the skills to be close to Loeb (but i think that any rally driver can do that).

In order to be a developer you have to be good at giving feedback after driving the car to its limits or close by. By driving the same road a million times and be fast proves you have a good memory not that you can drive.

if you are right then it means that up until now and until next october there has been no development driver doing anything in this car.....? Just Wilson racking up miles.
I can see your point. It is even worse than I thought.

At least PG and Henning did several thousand kilometers in Fiesta also.

In fiesta WRC prototype ? I guess they must have signed confidentiality contract with M-Sport then.
But even then perhaps I can see why PRODRIVE could be interested in PG....

Now that I think of it there is indeed ONE advantage to using Wilson jr as a driver for the new FIESTA WRC car :

There is no risk whatsoever that he will be hired by another team and share what he has learned with them.

Yes, in Fiesta WRC

It is obvious from looking at footage from japan that the CITROEN is the most driver friendly car around.

I am sure that on paper the FORD and CITROEN are almost equal in performance, but for OGIER to achieve a win in a fast, technical and tricky rally like japan on his FIRST go comes down to him being very skilled but especially he is in TOTAL TRUST and HARMONY with his car.

There are no surprises when you drive the CITROEN, and you can take it very close to the limit, easily.

The FORD on the other hand, is built for performance but not taking the driver's confidence into account. To go fast, both Hirvonen and Latvala have to go outside of their comfot zone and thats when mistakes happen.

You can really see this fundamental difference in thinking from engineering point of view from fact that Hirvonen and Latvala will get first drive of the Fiesta in October while the Citroen boys have driven the DS3 since january !! In simple terms Loeb and co. have already driven the DS3 for months over all kinds of roads and fine tuned the car for each conditions, made necessary handling changes and will even have time to test specifically the MICHELINS and fine tune even more before the first rally.

Obviously, at FORD, the driver's input comes close to last on their list of priorities. This is why they have been dominated since and this trend will continue, unfortunately for the sport.

Somebody with power should have the balls to tell Malcolm Wilson to change his thinking in the interest of the sport and the FORD brand so we can have non-citroen-driver champion again next year !

PLEASE ! :(

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kaffi

It is obvious from looking at footage from japan that the CITROEN is the most driver friendly car around.

I am sure that on paper the FORD and CITROEN are almost equal in performance, but for OGIER to achieve a win in a fast, technical and tricky rally like japan on his FIRST go comes down to him being very skilled but especially he is in TOTAL TRUST and HARMONY with his car.

There are no surprises when you drive the CITROEN, and you can take it very close to the limit, easily.

The FORD on the other hand, is built for performance but not taking the driver's confidence into account. To go fast, both Hirvonen and Latvala have to go outside of their comfot zone and thats when mistakes happen.

You can really see this fundamental difference in thinking from engineering point of view from fact that Hirvonen and Latvala will get first drive of the Fiesta in October while the Citroen boys have driven the DS3 since january !! In simple terms Loeb and co. have already driven the DS3 for months over all kinds of roads and fine tuned the car for each conditions, made necessary handling changes and will even have time to test specifically the MICHELINS and fine tune even more before the first rally.

Obviously, at FORD, the driver's input comes close to last on their list of priorities. This is why they have been dominated since and this trend will continue, unfortunately for the sport.

Somebody with power should have the balls to tell Malcolm Wilson to change his thinking in the interest of the sport and the FORD brand so we can have non-citroen-driver champion again next year !

PLEASE ! :(

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Malcolm Wilson runs M-Sport largely funded (if not exclusively) by Ford Europe. He is given a finite budget and is obviously told to go and win the WRC for that amount of money. I don't believe that the same amount of money available to Citroen competition department is available to M-sport.
So how, pray, can he conduct huge amounts of testing (including accomodation and transport) when he can't afford it? I'm sure he would love to, but he has two choices - carry on competing with the funding handicap or take up fishing and shooting in the Lake District. What would you do if rallying was your life?