M-Sport announced today that they will continue using the Fiesta car in rallying for years to come despite the fact that Ford decided to put an end to the production of this car from 2023.
The Cumbriam-based team is considered as one of the most successful teams as Ford Fiesta car is very popular to many rallying categories and only Skoda Fabia Rally2 is the closest competitive car to Fiesta.
The American brand announced a month ago that Ford Fiesta's production will stop from June 2023 despite the fact that it was one of the most popular supermini production cars of segment B. However, the British team managed to secure more Fiestas with the view of building more rallying cars and developing them for the future.
Last but not least, since WRC entered to a new era and cars involved hybrid systems, M-Sport decided to switch from Fiesta to Puma for the Rally1 era, but it must be mentioned that Malcolm Wilson's team won the manufacturers' title with the Fiesta WRC back in 2017.
"The Fiesta is a core part of M-Sport’s business activities and has been behind a lot of the company’s success in the past two decades", Wilson said.
"Thanks to our long and storied partnership with Ford, we were able to begin preparing for the end of the Fiesta’s production well ahead of time.
"I would like to assure all of our customers that we will still be building Fiesta rally cars for years to come, both in the UK and Poland.
"The Fiesta was the very first customer focussed car M-Sport developed and I think 2,000 overall victories speaks for itself.
"Development is underway across the board with our Fiesta based cars as well, with the Fiesta Rally2, Rally3 and Rally4 currently enjoying thorough development programmes.
"I’d like to personally thank Ford for their support over the years with the Fiesta.
"Ford and the Fiesta allowed M-Sport to grow as a business with its customer programmes which Ford trusted us with and continues to do so".
Finally, the director of Ford Performance, Mark Rushbrook said: "The Fiesta has seen incredible success in rallying which is largely thanks to the time and effort M-Sport has put into its comprehensive ‘Ladder of Opportunity’ for over a decade now.
"Ford Performance has proudly supported M-Sport with all of its Fiesta based programmes from the very beginning and we have enjoyed incredible success together.
"We want this success to continue, and Ford Performance will continue supporting M-Sport with its various development programmes for Fiesta based rally cars".
Photo Credits: M-Sport
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