M-Sport
The M-Sport World Rally Team is part of the M-Sport Ltd . In the past, the rally team was also known as the Qatar M-Sport World Rally Team , M-Sport Ford World Rally Team and Stobart M-Sport Ford Rally Team . The company is headed by Malcolm Wilson.
history
After the Ford works team withdrew from the World Rally Championship (WRC) in 2012 , Ford is represented in the racing series with M-Sport from Great Britain. M-Sport is run by ex-rally driver Malcolm Wilson (formerly Malcom Wilson Motorsport) and was persuaded by Ford in 1997 to participate in the manufacturer's rally project. In the following 14 years they celebrated considerable success and won the manufacturer's title twice in 2006 and 2007 . Back then, however, as a Ford works team and with the Ford Focus RS WRC .
The founder
Malcolm Wilson has more than 30 years of rallying experience at the highest level, much of it with main partner Ford. As a driver, he won two national titles in the late 1970s. The British Rally Championship won Wilson in 1994 at the wheel of a Ford Escort . He drove for three works teams in the World Rally Championship and spent several years at Ford as a test driver. Under his leadership, M-Sport has established itself as one of the world's leading private rally teams with a number of national and international titles. Wilson is responsible for WRC activities and develops the rally vehicles.
World Rally Championship (WRC)
Aside from its own team, M-Sport also makes the Ford Fiesta RS WRC available for private teams. That is why the Fiesta RS appears more often in the entry lists. For other rally classes , the Fiesta RRC (WRC2), Fiesta R5 (WRC2), Fiesta S2000 (WRC2 and WRC3), and the Fiesta R1 and R2 (national championships) are manufactured and sold. M-Sport had sold over 100 copies of the Fiesta R5 model by 2015. After Ford left the factory team in 2012 , 2013 was still a successful year for M-Sport. Thierry Neuville finished second in the drivers' world championship. The driver duo for 2015 was made up of Elfyn Evans and, following the resignation of Mikko Hirvonen at the end of the 2014 season , Ott Tänak .
Young series
The company founded the newcomer series Fiesta Sporting Trophy Rally (FST) and Fiesta Sporting Trophy International (FSTi). The Ford Fiesta Sport Trophy is a brand trophy aimed at providing an economical and well regulated, uniform and fun product for the participants. There are currently nine national championships of the FST in Belgium, Finland, Latvia, New Zealand, Poland, Sweden, Spain, Turkey and Russia. 280 Ford Fiesta R2s have already been sold in 27 countries. The concept enjoys worldwide recognition for the performance and durability of the Ford Fiesta and is especially ideal for young and aspiring rally athletes to learn about rallying. From the national championships, young talents are accompanied from M-Sport to the FIA - Junior World Rally Championship (JWRC).
Other racing cars
M-Sport was supervised by Bentley with the preparation of the Bentley Continental GT3 for the Blancpain Endurance Series and the British GT Championship in 2014.
Headquarters in Cumbria (England)
The M-Sport area Dovenby Hall sets standards in rallying. Hardly any rally team can claim a house with 115 hectares of green areas and the most modern technical systems in the factory halls. In the countryside of Cumbria is the restored Dovenby Hall, a Grade II listed buildings of particular historical importance, a contrast was found between modernity and history.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ m-sport.co.uk: PROFILE M-SPORT ( Memento from February 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on January 17, 2015
- ↑ m-sport.co.uk: Malcolm Wilson ( Memento from 1 January 2015, Internet Archive ), Retrieved on January 17, 2015
- ↑ motorsport-total.com: Milestone for M-Sport: 100th Fiesta R5 manufactured , accessed on January 17, 2015
- ↑ wrc.com: M-Sport World Rally Team , accessed January 17, 2015
- ↑ m-sport.co.uk: FST at M-Sport ( Memento from January 31, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on January 17, 2015
- ↑ m-sport.co.uk: Dovenby Hall ( Memento from January 1, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on January 17, 2015