M-Sport On The Brink Of Its Biggest Success Yet

Malcolm Wilson’s M-Sport World Rally Team needs just a handful of points from this week’s Wales Rally GB to become the first team to lift the world championship with a genuinely privateer car.

- David Evans

Having accumulated 358 points from 11 rounds of this year’s series, the Cumbrian squad needs just four more in Wales to write a new page in World Rally Championship history.

David Sutton’s team won the 1981 world championship with a Rothmans-backed Ford Escort RS1800 driven by Ari Vatanen and David Richards. But that Escort had been developed by Ford when its competition department in Boreham was at the height of its power. It was the same in 2006, when Sebastien Loeb took the drivers’ crown with private firm Kronos Racing – the Citroen Xsara WRC he was driving remained a factory-specification car.

M-Sport’s Ford Fiesta WRC is, however, all its own work, without any significant engineering input from the Blue Oval.

Wilson admits that the season so far has already turned out better than he expected.