M-Sport Ford World Rally Teams

[Rallyest]

This is just one big guessing. There will be 4 drivers allowed to go 101%, to fight for championship; support cast - Lappi, Katsuta, Breen/Sordo will be asked to deliver stabile Manu points; they will be fighting for 4-7 places, with some sole exceptions or when top 4 guys crash or have problems. They definitely will be helpful to their top guys if capable to stay in front of any of top4.
In Tanaks case - he will be alone, but as he said it to Motorsport - he likes the underdog status. My only concern - how far back fell the development of Puma when due to the extensive crash-fest in 2022 M-Sport were forced to slow down. If the car is reliable and fast, role of the help is less significant in fight for championship.

Well, i know they have been holding off with a engine update because of the fuel issue, so i dont think performance or quickness of the car is a question. Because even in the later season against the upgraded engined Hyundai and Toyota Loeb and even Loubet were able to show fast times. Main question is how fast and if they can root out the gremlins hindering the Pumas all season. My guess would be they do the engine update, and then see where they land performance wise, my guess is Sweden will be good indication of that, but i guess first half of season will go to making the car more reliable.

Im sure they know what the problems are, they just didnt have budget to deal with them because of the Crash-prone line up and lack of support from Ford, but all indications are that Ford will now backup the development budget more.

[AnttiL]

There will be 4 drivers allowed to go 101%, to fight for championship; support cast - Lappi, Katsuta, Breen/Sordo will be asked to deliver stabile Manu points; they will be fighting for 4-7 places, with some sole exceptions or when top 4 guys crash or have problems.

I think the top four comes naturally by pace, I doubt the others can really challenge regularly for rally wins. Of course Ogier or Loeb when they are driving.

[AndyRAC]

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/fo...bull/10411389/

Rumours of Ford being interested in joining F1.

Imagine them following the M-Sport template; a small budget, very little testing, one decent driver and a slow pay driver........

I'll believe that when I see it; they can't possibly afford it.

[seb_sh]

Imagine them following the M-Sport template; a small budget, very little testing, one decent driver and a slow pay driver........

I'll believe that when I see it; they can't possibly afford it.

If you read the article it would probably just be a rebadging job on the RBPT engine, pure marketing. That would not cost as much and would not cause any operational complications.

[AndyRAC]

If you read the article it would probably just be a rebadging job on the RBPT engine, pure marketing. That would not cost as much and would not cause any operational complications.

Yes, I know - I was being 'tongue in cheek'/ facetious....

[seb_sh]

This whole "taking off points" thing is a totally weird concept to me. You can't really plan it in advance, just drive as good as you can, and to win the title you have to be faster than the others, also your teammates.

Especially when people talk about taking points off on power stages. How can you estimate that "I'm going to drive faster than my 1st drivers rivals but not as fast as my 1st driver". Of course it's a different issue if your 1st driver has retired, then just try to win the power stage for yourself.

I thought you had an interesting point here and took a look out of curiosity. Now this is in no way rigurous I just skimmed the standings going back to 2000 and looked when the team mates slotted between the title combatants, I didn't look at power stages. Sorry if i made any mistakes:

2009 - 1. Loeb, 2. Sordo, 3. Hirvonen on two rallies gives 4 more points in favor of Loeb, the final points are 93 vs 92 for Loeb. So without Sordo beating Hirvonen twice Loeb is not champion.
2007 - Sordo between Loeb and Gronholm gives Loeb 7 extra points, final points are 116 vs 112 for Loeb. So again Sordo decides the champion.
2006 - Again Sordo, twice between Loeb and Gronholm gives 4 fewer points to the finn and the title goes to Loeb. The final difference is 1 point so with no Sordo then Gronholm is champion.

Counterexamples:
2008 - Sordo finished between Loeb and Hirvonen a few times, in total that gave Loeb 7 more points compared to if he wasn't between them but it doesn't the change title
2011 - Loeb and Ogier splitting wins between them gave Hirvonen a chance to keep up.
2003 - Sainz finished ahead of Loeb a couple of times giving him 2 fewer points and losing the title by 1 point.

in the rest of the years i couldn't see any significant influence from team-mates to the title.

So from about 20 years there 3 times where having a proper wingman was worth it, maybe we should give Sordo more credit!

[AnttiL]

I thought you had an interesting point here and took a look out of curiosity. Now this is in no way rigurous I just skimmed the standings going back to 2000 and looked when the team mates slotted between the title combatants, I didn't look at power stages. Sorry if i made any mistakes:

2009 - 1. Loeb, 2. Sordo, 3. Hirvonen on two rallies gives 4 more points in favor of Loeb, the final points are 93 vs 92 for Loeb. So without Sordo beating Hirvonen twice Loeb is not champion.
2007 - Sordo between Loeb and Gronholm gives Loeb 7 extra points, final points are 116 vs 112 for Loeb. So again Sordo decides the champion.
2006 - Again Sordo, twice between Loeb and Gronholm gives 4 fewer points to the finn and the title goes to Loeb. The final difference is 1 point so with no Sordo then Gronholm is champion.

Counterexamples:
2008 - Sordo finished between Loeb and Hirvonen a few times, in total that gave Loeb 7 more points compared to if he wasn't between them but it doesn't the change title
2011 - Loeb and Ogier splitting wins between them gave Hirvonen a chance to keep up.
2003 - Sainz finished ahead of Loeb a couple of times giving him 2 fewer points and losing the title by 1 point.

in the rest of the years i couldn't see any significant influence from team-mates to the title.

So from about 20 years there 3 times where having a proper wingman was worth it, maybe we should give Sordo more credit!

Good research, thanks!

2009 is also a sort of counter example when Latvala crashed in Poland, Loeb got more points...

[drive]

Loubet confirmed in the second Puma
https://www.wrc.com/en/news/2022/wrc...e-for-new-duo/

[Rallyest]

Loubet confirmed in the second Puma
https://www.wrc.com/en/news/2022/wrc...e-for-new-duo/

Really great news, i hope he can take the next step this year, he should be used to with the car now, and if he can and is willing to learn from Ott, and Ott is there to aid him i think he will do very well.

[Danny0405]

In addition to that, a side driver helping «*directly*» or «*indirectly*» his lead driver is not always visible by the points taken to other title challengers.
In terms of drivers having been a good help for his lead driver, one of the 1st name coming to my mind (in addition to Sordo 2008 in Catalunya) is Evans in 2018 with M-Sport. Without him giving better road position, giving some points, worsening Neuville’s comparative road position to Ogier after the Belgian’s road position + the Catalunya stuff, I’m not sure at all Ogier would have won the title.
We can also evoke Burns’ 2001 title with a bit of help from Martin and Solberg in Corsica.

When the fight is tight for the title, a good side driver in the team can always be an important help for one thing or another at one moment.
It is not absolutely necessary to win (Loeb or Ogier could have won the majority of their driver titles even with Serderidis or Bertelli or Al Qassimi as side driver in Citroen; we can also quote Meeke and Latvala who were quite inefficient during the season where Tanak won his title, at another level than Serderidis for sure) but sometimes, it helps.
However, it’s difficult to know which side driver will be effective because it’s a lot a question of opportunity of being in the mix at a given moment (and not a question of just being overall good even if it improves the probability).