The team principal of M-Sport Ford, Richard Millener, says that there is a development plan for his team during the season, but he believes that the car is capable of winning events considering the two victories in 2023.
The Malcolm Wilson's team will rely on a young driver line-up as Adrien Fourmaux will return back as a full-time driver while Gregoire Munster has secured his first ever full-season campaign at the top level. Both of them will replace Ott Tanak and Pierre-Louis Loubet, who joined Hyundai and Toksport respectively, but M-Sport Ford has a disadvantage over their rivals' teams as Fourmaux and Munster are inexperienced compared to the other rosters. Fourmaux has completed its test for Rallye Monte Carlo, as it was held from Sunday 14 January to Monday 15 January, and Munster will take over the next two days.
"We will still be developing the car, and we have a development plan", Millener said.
"There are a limited amount of developments each team can do, but our plan is to do as much as we are allowed.
"I read a lot of stuff about us not developing and not testing, which is not the case.
"We are probably giving our drivers the most testing as both our drivers will have two days each before Monte Carlo.
"We are doing everything we can.
"We are working on a new rear wing, which people have seen, that will come in a few rallies time, so we are still pushing ahead.
"It is difficult to compete against the others, but I don't use that as an excuse because we still won two rallies last year, so the car is good enough to win.
"There was a culmination of completely different things last year that came together, and we had a run of two or three bad rallies, and that is what cost our championship hopes.
"We know we need to get better at that and reliability cost us despite the reasons for the reliability being very different.
"We know we need to get better at that, and we have promised that this is one of the main things we are working on to get right.
"We know we can do that as the previous season in 2022 the car was good, we just need to get back there".
Source: Motorsport.com
Photo Credits: M-Sport
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