The team principal of M-Sport Ford, Richard Millener, says that his team targets to retain Gregoire Munster if Adrien Fourmaux leaves next year while he reveals that they are in talks with Oliver Solberg.
Munster made his first two outings at the top level with M-Sport Ford back in 2023 when he competed at Rally Chile and at Central European Rally. The Malcolm Wilson's team decided to promote him and to offer him a full-season campaign with the Puma Rally1 this year, but he has not delivered the results that we expected as he is fighting with the WRC2 drivers for the most of the time. His best results so far this season are two top five finishes (Rally Italia Sardegna, CER) while he has two DNFs and three restarts under the SuperRally regulations. Furthermore, it is rumored that Adrien Fourmaux may join Hyundai Motorsport in 2025, thus M-Sport Ford is examining its options ahead of the new WRC season, but obviously the team will extend Munster's contract. Last but not least, Millener revealed that they are in discussions with Martins Sesks and Oliver Solberg, but the last one does not know his plans yet as he is considering of returning back to the top level or of keeping driving a Rally2 car.
"The most obvious objective would be to have Grégoire remain", Millener said.
"The goal would be to have him with us again.
"Personally, I don’t think he’s done badly.
"We’ve got to be realistic about what we’re expecting – we’ve always said it’s a multi-year program to get someone to the top level and Grég’s only had 12 months of it.
"When you look at the events he’s gone back to in the Puma, in Chile and CER, we saw some strong stage times.
"I think it would be silly and pretty disrespectful of us just to say no based on no real fact.
"So, yeah, continuing with Grég is a goal for us and, obviously, we are in conversation with the people that you’re talking about us talking to!"
Finally, Millener said about Oliver Solberg: "From what we understand, Oliver has options and he needs to decide what he wants to do and where his priorities lie.
"You’d have to be realistic, he hasn’t been in Rally1 car for two years and it’s not easy to get straight back on the pace of other drivers.
"Like I said, Oliver has interest in Rally2 and he needs to decide if he wants to be in a Rally1 or a Rally2 car – we’re not interested in having people in the car if they’re not 100% committed to being there".
Source: DirtFish.com
Photo Credits: M-Sport
Post a Comment