Ford Confirm M-Sport and Petter Solberg

Ford of Europe announced this week that they will be extending its participation in the FIA World Rally Championship into 2012 and 2013.

British based partner M-Sport, which has successfully operated Ford’s WRC activities since 1997, will continue to operate the programme from its facilities at Dovenby Hall in north-west England.

The Fiesta RS, which claimed a clean sweep of the podium in both the first and final rounds of its debut season this year, will continue for both 2012 and 2013.

Finland’s Jari-Matti Latvala and co-driver Miikka Anttila have been confirmed as team leaders for 2012. With Mikko Hirvonen’s recent move to Citroen, it looked for all money that Sebastien Ogier would complete a swap to Ford.

However the surprise addition to the team is former world champion Petter Solberg and Chris Patterson, who have signed a one-year agreement to drive in all 13 rounds.

The experienced Solberg won the world title in 2003 and the 37-year-old Norwegian has 13 world rally wins to his name.  It will be his second stint with Ford, having launched his world rally career with the team in 1999.

Ford finished the 2011 season on a high with victory for Latvala in Britain in the final round of the championship, and it’s a good thing they did because otherwise one would have to admit the season was a disappointing one.

However team principal Malcolm Wilson remains confident of the Fiesta RS’s potential, stating “the performance of the Fiesta RS WRC in 2011 was strong on all surfaces and I’m genuinely excited about what we can achieve in the future,” he said.  “We want to challenge for world titles and I have no doubts that our car and driver combination, allied to the infrastructure and expertise of our staff at Dovenby Hall, will allow us to do that.”

I think the combination of lessons learnt in 2011, the experience of Petter Solberg and raw speed of Jari-Matti Latvala pose an ominous threat to the institution that is Citroen WRC.

Miles Downard