Ford Drops Out Of WRC
It's been thirty years of glory, technical development, and prestige, but it's all over now: Ford has joined MINI on the sidelines for next year's World Rally Championship. Ford had been campaigning the Ford Fiesta RS as a 'works' or factory-backed rally platform with great success, winning two constructor championships in the past decade.
Why is Ford pulling out? Unlike MINI, whose ties to the sport were mostly a public relations experiment linked back to the automaker's early involvement in rallying while still under British control, Ford has poured millions of research dollars into its WRC effort, resulting in a strong global small cars platform that is beginning to bear significant fruit for the brand. Unfortunately, the company no longer sees the return on investment from a publicity perspective that it once did in the World Rally Championship, especially given that the European new car market is currently moribund.
Ford will continue to work behind the scenes in providing technical assistance to the teams that continue to move forward in WRC using Ford platforms. M-Sport, the longest-running Ford-backed works team in the Championship, will do just that, maintaining its relationship with the automaker despite losing its status as a factory effort.
The pair of announcements from MINI and Ford this month have dramatically changed the landscape of the World Rally Championship, as currently only Citroen remains involved in directly sponsoring drivers and teams. A now largely privateer field is about to be shaken further as Volkswagen and Toyota gear up to present their own works efforts in the series. Even Hyundai, which just a few short weeks ago pulled out of its North American motorsports commitments, will soon be making waves in WRC with a factory team.
