M-SPORTRETURNS AND SIGNS EVANS AND SUNINEN
M-sport has committed to this year’s World Rally Championship – but Malcolm Wilson has warned there is still work to do to find the team’s full 2019 budget.
Despite the financial concerns, Wilson refused to turn his back on the extensive development work carried out by his team and its principal partner Ford. He was also reluctant to halt M-sport’s 22-year unbroken run of full-time WRC participation.
“We have been working night and day to put together the pieces of the jigsaw that go to make a WRC team for 2019,” said Wilson. “It is true that we don’t have 100 per cent of the details in place as we speak, but with the huge amount of development work that has been going on with the car in recent months – working with our team partners in Europe and the US on engine, suspension and aerodynamics. Every element has been reviewed and updated and I felt we had to make a commitment to see all this hard work by all of the extended team out on the stages next year.
“We are going to rely on the support of the whole WRC community to piece together the missing pieces, but we are confident we have the tools to do a good job and so we are making the decision now to push forward.”
M-sport confirmed Elfyn Evans will drive for the squad for a sixth season with Finn Teemu Suninen also committed for all 14 rounds. Twenty-eight-year-old Swede Pontus Tidemand – the 2017 WRC2 champion with Skoda – joins the team for the first two rounds in Monte Carlo and Sweden.
Tidemand said: “In Monte Carlo, focus will be on the experience, to get a feel for the car and get to know the team before Rally Sweden, where I really want to be as well prepared as possible.”
Craig Breen’s co-driver Scott Martin moves over to co-drive Evans this year. M-sport’s announcement means Breen is seatless for 2019 with no obvious option for the Irishman.
Evans’s former co-driver Dan Barritt will return to work with Toyota junior Takamoto Katsuta.
A further M-sport change for 2019 will be Richard Millener stepping up to team principal – allowing Wilson to devote more time to the commercial side of M-sport as a business.