The team principal of M-Sport Ford, Richard Millener, says that the team's ambition is to add an experienced driver in the squad after not taking the results that wants this year.
Craig Breen is the leading driver of M-Sport Ford and has only two podium finishes so far this year (third and second place in Monte Carlo andSardinia respectively) while the part-timer Sebastien Loeb clinched the first victory of the British team in the hybrid era.
Gus Greensmith, Adrien Fourmaux and Pierre-Loubet hare the less-experienced drivers, but the last one stole the show in Sardinia as he finished fourth overall in his third outing with Puma.
However, Fourmaux's seat was under threat before the start of Rally de Portugal due to the fact that he had many crashes and in fact Malcolm Wilson said to him that if he wanted to restart in Kenya after his crash, he had to repair his car with Alex Coria and to help the M-Sport mechanics.
"It’s always a negative when your lead driver retires or has a problem", Millener said.
"When that happens, we often find ourselves struggling to challenge for the top three.
"It’s frustrating, but it’s understandable.
"I think it’d be fantastic to have another established driver to be able to push for those podiums, but unfortunately it’s just an ambition we can’t reach at the moment.
"We’ll keep coming up with ideas of how we can change that, because we know we can get the results. "We’ve just got to keep on trying and hoping that we can find a way to get more funding to do that.
"Craig is quite capable of doing it, but as the only driver leading the team he has a lot of pressure on his shoulders.
"I don’t see any way at the moment for us to find the budget to get that additional driver, but it's something we should always aim for.
"Adrien, Pierre and Gus are all still learning.
"Of course, in the longer term, we’ve got three really good young drivers and hopefully in three or four years’ time, they’ll be the ones filling that position.
"But we also need to do it right now as well.
"We can’t give up - if you do that and just live with what you have, you’re never going to make it work. "It's just an ongoing thought in my head that we need to find a way to try and do it.
"It’s not easy, but I won’t give up".
Source: wrc.com
Photo Credits: M-Sport
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