Hi, friends!
Ford works rally team acquired services of M-Sport in 1997 after they saw that Malcolm Wilson's private team can do even better results that their works team. That was enough for them to make contract with them and that way M-Sport became an official tuner of Ford WRC team.
They had all kind of ups and lows and at one point there were some stupid decisions to sign a paying driver to the works team. It wasn't only M-Sport team who did that. There was other British team called Prodrive who was also signing paying drivers for the works Subaru team. If I was the representative of Ford or Subaru, these teams would be very criticized.
When you sign a paying driver, you already know that the quality of the team would be much lower. That's because you take a guy with money instead of guy with the talent. I saw some guys with money who became very successful but they never became WRC champions. And that's true.
Those guys who ruled the world came to the sport with the empty pockets and they still became very big, they became a champions.
OK, M-Sport Ford lost the full works drive with Ford in 2013 and they are now semi-private outfit with the support of Ford but no one can say how much Ford helps in this program. Let's say that they have to rent the seats now to the paying guys.
In the meantime they turned to the GT championship with Bentley (that program came to an end) and some other manufacturers but they were always faithful to everything connected with the Ford.
Now they are turning to the Dakar series with Ford Ranger T1+ . From what I heard, that won't be their development process of the car but from the team called NWM from South Africa.
They will be their headquarters for Europe and probably rest of the world because M-Sport is a big name in the world of motorsport. For those who don't know, Dakar Rally and Dakar series are the part of Rally Raid category of FIA.
We still don't know who is gonna be the driver for next year's Dakar, but for now they will be using current line-up from the NWT team.
Credit for photos and videos to Dakar and Youtube
Follow @pfunk and @themarkymark for newest witness news.
Great attitude from crew at @minnowsupport :)
Grab a beer and enjoy!
Cheers!