M-Sport Ford World Rally Teams

[bassist]

Official
https://www.m-sport.co.uk/single-pos...-TEAM-FOR-2020

Oh well, there we go, best of luck to them.

[mknight]

While certainly not unexpected the 2 car+one "paydriver" for 9 events is certainly not the best possible lineup. That would have been Latvala or Mikkelsen as one of 3 fulltime drivers with Greensmith in 4th car. But it didn't look like neither the mentioned drivers nor MSport were really interested in that.

[T16]

Well at least Greensmith will bring some funding to help support the team, if nothing else. Good on him!

[AnttiL]

While certainly not unexpected the 2 car+one "paydriver" for 9 events is certainly not the best possible lineup. That would have been Latvala or Mikkelsen as one of 3 fulltime drivers with Greensmith in 4th car. But it didn't look like neither the mentioned drivers nor MSport were really interested in that.

Remember: M-Sport is interested in having non-paying drivers in two scenarios
1) they will most likely win the title (case Ogier)
2) they are young and will most likely end up being well paid factory drivers for some years and bring some return to the investment (case Tänak, Evans)

Latvala doesn't really fit these conditions, not sure if Mikkelsen would either...also, Latvala wants to stay loyal to Toyota in order to fight for Ogier's seat for 2021. Not sure what Mikkelsen's planning...

[mknight]

Sure for MSport "business concept" Latvala doesn't fit in at all and Mikkelsen has seemingly less "potential" than Lappi. On top of that the first two don't want to pay (dunno how the deal went with Lappi since his manager also doesn't like to pay).

Thing was that Latvala or Mikkelsen would help both Lappi and Suninen in terms of experience, car setup/development and also work as someone to measure against in same car. This would help MSport business model in the longer term as well as both Lappi and Suninen.

This way there is a real danger that Lappi and Suninen will only have each other to race and compare against. Lappi was struggling with setup at Toyota even when the car was clearly fastest at end of 2018 and at Citroen he struggled in most rallies, Suninen similarly had setup issues when Evans was out.
For their near future it is important to a) beat the other one (this works well with this MSport deal), b) Don't be overshadowed by Rovanpera and Evans (this might be an issue)

I would expect that MSport hires some experienced driver next year when the new car development starts though.

[deephouse]

There are still 4 maybe 5 events when Greensmith will not driving. Sweden, Kenya, NZ and Japan. In NZ I really can see Paddon.

[AnttiL]

It's true that M-Sport doesn't now have an experienced guy to develop new homologations and make setups for rallies, or to be a benchmark from the car speed (remember Finland 2019, was it the drivers or the car that was slow?). But it would be quite expensive to solve that by hiring someone like Latvala or Mikkelsen.

Also, remember that Lappi probably has a special deal with Citroen salary and Ponsse support.

[Sulland]

If Lappi likes the Fiesta and can "gel" with it, he will be a contender for top spot, and could be the big surprize in 2020!

[AnttiL]

The question is: has the car been left behind in terms of development? Could even Ogier or Tänak win rallies with it?

[mknight]

It's true that M-Sport doesn't now have an experienced guy to develop new homologations and make setups for rallies, or to be a benchmark from the car speed (remember Finland 2019, was it the drivers or the car that was slow?). But it would be quite expensive to solve that by hiring someone like Latvala or Mikkelsen.

Also, remember that Lappi probably has a special deal with Citroen salary and Ponsse support.

With the current situation in WRC I actually think this was perfect position for MSport to get one of them very cheap/no cost, something that is not likely to repeat next year imo (with Ogier + maybe Loeb and even Sordo retiring, and JML will also likely be in much worse form).

If Lappi likes the Fiesta and can "gel" with it, he will be a contender for top spot, and could be the big surprize in 2020!

- I don't think Fiesta with any driver will be a contender for top spot in 2020, not when Hyundai is pushing massively in development and drivers and Toyota already has an edge over Fiesta from 2019 and there is seemingly no real development going on at MSport. (no testing for long time even with many test days available)
- He is still an enigma in many ways. Specially second half of 2018 was a huge letdown. So just about anything can happen both ways.