This season has been one full of highs and lows for The Blue Oval’s World Rally Championship (WRC) team, M-Sport Ford. That outfit scored a fifth place finish at Monte Carlo, claimed victory in Sweden, stumbled a bit to ninth overall in Mexico, earned second place in Croatia, took home a fourth-place finish in Portugal, rebounded from some rain-related issues in Italy to earn a second-place finish, and secured an eighth place overall finish in Estonia last week. Now, still in the hunt for championship points, M-Sport Ford is looking to make a big comeback at Rally Finland this upcoming weekend.
The ninth round of the 2023 FIA World Rally Championship – Secto Rally Finland – is otherwise known as the Gravel Grand Prix, thanks to its loose surfaces and high-speed stages riddled with full-throttle jumps. It’s a circuit that M-Sport Ford driver Ott Tänak is rather familiar with after securing three wins in Finland over his career, though he’s hoping to hit the reset button this time around after a disappointing result in Estonia, alongside co-driver Martin Järveoja.
“Finland generally is much more demanding event than Estonia,” Tänak said. “I’ve enjoyed driving there in the past and we have had some great performances in Finland before. Estonia was very tough and we couldn’t score points we needed from there unfortunately, but we still produced some good pace. Our focus is to find best possible feeling from Rally Finland shakedown and then we just push for the best possible result over the weekend!”
He certainly won’t be alone in that effort, as fellow drivers Pierre-Louis Loubet will also be behind the wheel of his Puma Hybrid Rally1, while Adrien Fourmaux and Grégoire Munster will once again be piloting their Ford Fiesta Rally2 racers in the WRC2 category. However, coming off a short break, several members of the M-Sport Ford team stayed behind in Estonia to rebuild the racers before heading to Finland for the next stage.
We’ll have more on M-Sport Ford soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for more Ford racing news and continuous Ford news coverage.
No Comments yet