When they debuts earlier this year, the M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1 race cars revealed a cool Red Bull livery for the 2025 FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) season. However, the Puma Rally1 of Mārtiņš Sesks will look a little different for the forthcoming Rally Estonia, showing off a red-and-white livery based on his country’s flag.
As per a report from DirtFish, Ford Puma Rally1 sports a scheme inspired by the Latvian flag, representing “traditional Latvian signs of strength,” according to Sesks. The driver is looking forward to not only running the special colors, but to returning to the challenging gravel stages where he showed early promise in Poland and Latvia last year.
Estonia, which is geographically next to Latvia, is a “home” race for Sesks, and he’s looking forward to hitting the stages and putting on a show for his local fans.
“Rally Estonia will feel like a home event for us this year,” Sesks said. “For sure there will be lots of Latvian fans out spectating and lots of Latvian flags in the crowds which is always great to see. I’m rfirst broke covereally looking forward to having those home-crowd emotions again – it really is one of the most valuable things you can have. Of course I’m also looking forward to the rally itself and to being back on fast gravel.”
He added, “Let’s see how it goes and hopefully we can find a good feeling in the car and have a really great weekend. We’re looking forward to it.”
Sesks and his codriver, Renārs Francis, are currently positioned 14th in the WRC championship standings. Meanwhile, their M-Sport Ford Puma teammates, Grégoire Munster and Louis Louka, hold down 10th place on the board. Rally Estonia is scheduled to kick off on July 17th, 2025, and reach its conclusion on July 20th.
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This past weekend once again made it painfully (and somewhat hilariously) clear: M-Sport isn’t just trailing the professional teams — they’re not even in the same postcode.
For years now, we’ve been treated to a steady stream of overly optimistic press releases, promising glorious comebacks and “game-changing developments.” Spoiler alert: the wins never showed up.
Take the latest rally — Sesks was the best-placed Ford driver… if by “best” you mean finishing minutes behind the winner.
So what exactly is the point of this continued partnership? Ford is not just being outpaced in the WRC; it’s also losing ground in European car sales.
Maybe — just maybe — it’s time to wave a polite but firm goodbye to M-Sport? Or at least stop pretending this is still a winning team.