HOW M-SPORT IS BREAKING DOWN THE BORDERS

The firm’s polish arm has ramped up its HQ and is ready to take the next step. by David Evans

Flying into Krakow’s John Paul II International Airport is a slightly surreal experience for a rally fan. There’s the predictable bird’s eye view of a long-stay car park, an Orlen petrol station, a Mcdonalds… and an enormous M-sport building.

Arriving on the car park at M-sport Poland, it’s quite disorientating. The signage is, naturally, similar to the business end of Dovenby Hall, but in place of a 16th-century country house, there’s a cutting edge, design-led factory.

And every few minutes a pair of Rolls-royce engines reverse thrust to remind you you’re some distance from Cumbria.

M-sport managing director Malcolm Wilson smiles at the recognition of mission accomplished.

“I wanted this place to be the complete opposite to Dovenby,” he says. “At Dovenby we’re a fairly long way from the nearest airport, so to make this Krakow site work, it had to be as close as possible.”

Any closer and it’d be an extension to the terminal building. Completed last year, Wilson’s justifiably proud of the super-swish new facility. And just as proud of the chap in charge of it.

Maciek Woda moved to Britain to chase his dream of becoming a rally engineer in 2004. After a two-month trial period, he was taken on as a full-time mechanic at Dovenby. After rising through the ranks, Woda took advantage of Wilson’s good mood as Mikko Hirvonen and Jari-matti Latvala cruised towards an apparent 1-2 at Rally Poland in 2009.

“As we walked down to watch the final superspecial, I asked Malcolm what he thought of Poland,” says Woda, “he said he liked it. So I said ‘Why don’t you invest in Poland then?’ He thought for a moment and said: ‘Why not…’ I’m glad I didn’t leave it for a couple of hours, his mood wasn’t so good after Jari-matti crashed!”

M-sport Poland was born the following year and housed temporarily at workshops in Krakow from 2011.

Woda continues: “We moved into some premises in Krakow in time to run the original Fiestas for the 2011 WRC Academy. We ran the cars from those premises for three years, but it was always about a new building close to the airport. This is perfect.”

Opened last year, M-sport Poland’s new factory is something special. Once you’re inside – and away from the noise of Lufthansa’s 1235hrs departure for Frankfurt – it’s M-sport all over with a gleaming factory floor finished to the same standard as the Cockermouth headquarters.

The Woda and Wilson tour takes a while, encompassing shops for bodyshells, fabrication, engine, electrics, suspension and transmission. Then there’s a huge side section which swallows a couple of transporter trucks whole and allows them to be washed in the warm – a genuine comfort in a place which spends a chunk of the winter weathering below freezing.

The engine dyno room is especially impressive. And begs the obvious question of what’s the place for?

“We’re focusing on front-wheel drive here,” says Woda. “The dyno was invaluable in the development of the new [Ford Fiesta] R2 car. The engine did 120 hours on the dyno. Having it really transforms a facility like this one. For example, we needed to do some work on the camshaft for the car and we had it redesigned, on the dyno and ready to go in the car in 48 hours later.

“But as well as that we use it for the rebuild of R5 engines.”

Wilson’s investment in M-sport Poland is significant, especially in Woda himself.

“He’s fantastic,” says Woda. “He’s always there on the end of the telephone and he’s over here regularly, but he lets me get on with things. He keeps telling me: ‘no pressure!’ But I think we both know…

“It’s so important to me that M-sport Poland stands on its own two feet financially. With the exception of the [wiring] looms [which come from Cumbria], we have designed and built the R2 car completely on our own here, with our own workforce. OK, we have the M-sport database, so we can dive in and look at the work from the R5 or World Rally Car – and, of course, our friends in Cumbria are only on the end of the telephone. But I’m really proud of what we achieved here and what we have planned for the future.”

The first part of that future is supplying next year’s Junior WRC cars out of Krakow, not to mention one-make series in national rallying all around the world. M-sport sold 120 of the current one-litre R2 cars. Woda has already committed to building 100 kits for the new cars.

Ford has committed budget to the development of the R2 car, but that’s a smart investment from the Blue Oval as M-sport is surely one of its biggest customers; the stores are packed from floor to ceiling with original parts bought and paid for from Ford Poland.

Walking back onto the main factory floor, it’s hard to miss a distinctly dog-eared R2 car.

“That’s the first test car,” says Woda. “As you can see, it’s been busy.”

Dented panels add detail to almost 2500 miles in stage mode already. “It’s been everywhere, every surface. We have to have it ready for homologation on January 1.”

It will be. And from then on, the target is to sign-off three or four cars per week.

“We have a lot of orders and a lot of interest in this new car,” says Woda. “It’s not surprising. The previous car was good, but this one is even better – almost everything is new. We have a new engine with 200bhp [the old one had 175bhp] thanks to using the turbo from the Fiesta ST, different pistons and a new cam. And we have a higher specification gearbox from Sadev. There was nothing wrong with the old one, but this one has thicker casings – some of these changes had to be made because of the new R2 regulations from the FIA. But the car is good. Very good.”

And, on the inside, it bears more than a striking resemblance to its big brother World Rally Car.

“The seating position and much of the rollcage design,” says Woda, “we took these from the Fiesta WRC. It makes sense for us to use the expertise we have within the company.”

At the same time, Woda is about generating talent from within Poland, which was why he was intrigued by a letter from Jaroslaw Rusek. Working in a design studio in Krakow, lifelong rally fan Rusek wrote to Woda to ask if he could help out at the new M-sport facility at weekends.

“He was offering to wash cars, to do anything,” Woda says. “I talked to Chris [Williams, M-sport’s head of rally engineering] and sent him the CV. Chris said to talk to him.”

Rusek landed the dream. He spent a year at Dovenby Hall before returning to M-sport Poland, where he now works full time.

“I wanted to be involved, somehow, in M-sport Poland,” Rusek says. “In Poland we have some workshops for rallying, but nothing like M-sport. For us, it’s M-sport and nothing else.

“I remember the first time I saw the building in Dovenby. Of course, you know this building from the pictures, but in life it is something completely different. And then inside, the first time I saw the first generation Focus, the Safari car [from 1999], it was incredible. I have so many posters of this car on my wall. It was Colin’s car – you could cry in a moment like this. This was something amazing for me; I could never imagine this story would go like this for me.

“It was the same when I saw Malcolm Wilson for the first time. I had seen him so many times in interviews on the television, but to have this man as my boss was something incredible.”

And when Wilson and Woda pull back the cover to reveal the all-new Ford Fiesta R2, Rusek is full of pride. “From here, we put our heart and soul to this car,” he says, “this is the car from Poland.”

And the start of a new story for M-sport Poland. ■