M-Sport Ford World Rally Teams

[denkimi]

They can not come with Suninen and Greensmith as top dogs. Will be a lot of DNFs.
They need someone to bring the car to points.

what for?

it's not like they have any chance of beating hyundai or toyota.

[mknight]

Since it seems Ford has somehow commited for the 2022 car I wonder:

- Do they need to show some results in WRC in 2021 to ensure continuing Ford support?
If not, they can really just run a money season with Suninen, Greensmith, Formaux. (Or even someone else than Suninen who brings budget)

- Who will develop the 2022 car? ( again doesn't necessarily need to be a top WRC driver, but none of these 3 seem like a very good idea ). You might argue that Camilli did a lot of work developing 2017 Fiesta, but Tanak was certainly there too and Ogier came in November and the car susequently got some big changes in first 1/3 of 2017. (when Hyundai was clearly fastest)

I don't see much reason for MSport to take Mikkelsen or for Mikkelsen to drive at MSport early in 2021 unless it includes a 2022 deal. He is likely not interested in paying to only fight his teammates and neither MSport nor Mikkelsen are in a hurry to sign for 2022 atm. Mikkelsen surely hopes for Toyota and MSport is not in position for long term future deals at this time. So if anything happens on that front it will be much later in the season.

[AndyRAC]

Since it seems Ford has somehow commited for the 2022 car I wonder.

It depends on what 'commitment' is defined by.

Full factory support, both financially and technically, enabling top drivers = Commitment.
Some technical/ aero support only, requiring self funding drivers = half ar5ed support we seen now.

[AnttiL]

I don't see much reason for MSport to take Mikkelsen or for Mikkelsen to drive at MSport early in 2021 unless it includes a 2022 deal. He is likely not interested in paying to only fight his teammates and neither MSport nor Mikkelsen are in a hurry to sign for 2022 atm. Mikkelsen surely hopes for Toyota and MSport is not in position for long term future deals at this time. So if anything happens on that front it will be much later in the season.

Why are we still speculating on Mikkelsen when he clearly is going to drive WRC2 next year with Toksport?

Anyway, someone definitely needs to develop that 2022 car. The thing with Suninen is that he hasn't done an awful lot of testing during his career. During the Ogier years he just took the car as Ogier had set it up and made some adjustments. Then the budgets have been smaller the two following years. He was in a junior testing program with Toyota in the early years of the Yaris WRC project, but I think that was more about endurance testing. He also did something with Oreca on the R4 kit. But I would still like to have someone who has been in proper factory teams, doing more testing. Even Lappi probably has more testing and developing experience (Skoda, Toyota, Citroen).

[dupanton]

M-Sport has more worries on its head, like Brexit. It will cost them extra money and effort to get everything delivered in mainland Europe.
I hope they get to Monte Carlo in time, if there is chaos with a hard exit at the ferry and train...

[Paul Hudson]

M-Sport has more worries on its head, like Brexit. It will cost them extra money and effort to get everything delivered in mainland Europe.
I hope they get to Monte Carlo in time, if there is chaos with a hard exit at the ferry and train...

M-Sport have a very good base in Poland so should not be too much of a problem. Run the WRC Team out of Poland.

[mknight]

Why are we still speculating on Mikkelsen when he clearly is going to drive WRC2 next year with Toksport?

At this point is was mostly since the linked article from D.Evans talked about it (also with Toksport mentioned).

Even with Toksport announcement some kind of deal might happen later in season, but definitely not before Croatia (april).

[Andre Oliveira]

M-Sport have a very good base in Poland so should not be too much of a problem. Run the WRC Team out of Poland.

Ford Fiesta Rally3 and Rally4 there. For sure need big facility.

[Rallyper]

I think we can probably cross JML off the list of potential candidates for an M-Sport drive now...

Though stranger things have happened, like JML becoming Toyota team principle in the first place!

For sure after what´s happened after my quote.

[Jarek Z]

I don't know if it was posted here - it seems Malcolm Wilson has more faith in ERC than WRC (at least when it comes to talent development and potential income for M-Sport):
https://www.fiaerc.com/wilson-erc-is...coming-talent/