RETRO: THE WRC’S FIRST DRIVERS’ TITLE
With Ford Motorsport’s Boreham base – like the rest of Britain – locked down under a blanket of snow amid some of the coldest temperatures on record, the French Riviera offered a welcome relief from the winter of discontent.
Forty years ago, Ford Motorsport was preparing its biggest effort yet to end Italian rule of the World Rally Championship. For the previous five years, Lancia and Fiat had dominated the series’ only silverware.
For 1979, there were two world titles on offer for the first time, with the FIA World Rally Championship for Drivers replacing the FIA Cup for Drivers, which had been won by Sandro Munari in 1977 and Markku Alen in 1978. Munari and Alen were, world champions in all but the name. But it was the name that mattered.
Ford was fortunate to arrive in the Alps with its plans intact – just a couple of months earlier, 15,000 Blue Oval workers had walked out on strike at government-led plans to limit pay deals to five per cent.
During that time, Ford Motorsport was unable to operate and official cars missed the Tour de Corse and the RAC Rally. That wasn’t strictly true for the RAC. Seeing what was coming, forward-thinking chaps like Allan Wilkinson and Mick Jones smuggled a few RS1800S out and put them in the hands of dealer teams – hence David Sutton running Hannu Mikkola’s Eaton Yale car to victory.
The week after the RAC, a deal was done, the workers got their 17 per cent and Peter Ashcroft could lead Boreham back to the matter in hand.
Aware that the Escort had struggled against Lancia’s Stratos or Fiat’s 131 Abarth on asphalt, new cars were prepared for the season opener. Mikkola and Bjorn Waldegard were entrusted with cars lightened by almost 150 kilogrammes.
The engine, shifted further back and lower down to improve the car’s balance, came with Kugelfischer fuel injection to generate 272bhp (the cars did revert to more reliable twin-48 Webers on some gravel rounds) and the dry racing rubber would be wider than ever beneath Ford’s fastest ever rally cars.
Mikkola’s car was too quick for the French police and he was ruled out of a Monte win with a five-minute penalty for speeding on the road section. Waldegard reeled Bernard Darniche’s private Stratos in and moved into a comfortable lead for the final night. Being a Frenchman, two-time European champion Darniche had a few fans about the Alps that night and they decided to take matters into their own hands. Knowing Waldegard’s Ford was first on the road, boulders were laid across the road in the penultimate stage. Minutes were lost as Waldegard’s co-driver Hans Thorszelius hauled them out of the way. Darniche won round one by six seconds.
History was made on the second round in Sweden when Stig Blomqvist’s Saab 99 win was the first in the world championship for a turbocharged car. That was one of just two 1979 outings for Stig: he retired from the RAC on his other WRC start.
Mikkola won Portugal and trailed Waldegard by nine points going into Kenya. Ford would only contest eight of the 12 WRC rounds in 1979 (the best seven counted for points), so it allowed its crews to tackle the Safari and season-ending Bandama Rally on the Ivory Coast with Mercedes. The German firm underestimated the task of sending five-litre 450 SLCS through the African bush, but Mikkola still managed second and Waldegard sixth.
An Acropolis win put Waldegard back on top and, by this point, Fiat’s efforts were looking weaker by the rally. The Turin firm’s solitary win came courtesy of Alen at his beloved 1000 Lakes – and this was only after Mikkola retired with engine problems and Ari Vatanen scared himself into second. A Waldegard victory one round later in Quebec and the title was effectively Ford’s. When Fiat failed to win in Sanremo or Corsica (where none of the main protagonists turned up and Darniche won by 36 minutes), Ford won its first world title.
Celebrations were, however, muted. Soon after Waldegard’s win in Canada, Ford’s then motorsport manager Mike Kranefuss announced Ford’s work was done in the WRC.
Motoring News reported him saying: “We have been active in rallying for 17 years without a break. A rallying sabbatical will give us the opportunity to proceed with vehicle development.”
The RAC would be the Blue Oval’s final official outing. With that in mind, seven factory cars were prepared, six of which finished in the top 10, with Russell Brookes scoring a career-best second place behind winner Mikkola. Ironically, Waldegard’s brand new RS1800 hit trouble and he could only manage ninth. Alen had pinned his hopes to a change of car, convincing Fiat bosses to allow him back into a Lancia Stratos for one final shot at rescuing his 1979 title bid. Quick early on, the Finn’s HF struggled to keep pace with the Escorts and fifth was the best he could manage.
With one round remaining, the two title protagonists once more returned to Mercedes power – and Africa. This time the 450s were fettled and ready for the Ivory Coast event. The pair of them finished two hours ahead of their nearest rival, Ove Andersson’s Toyota Celica.
Mikkola won, but second place was enough for Waldegard to seal the first ever drivers’ title by the narrowest of margins. He won by a single point, 112 to 111.
Ultimately – and helped in no small part by a Shekhar Mehta Safari win and a couple of Timo Salonen podiums in Greece and Canada – Datsun edged Fiat for the runners-up spot.
And then, Ford was gone. The Escort’s days had been numbered through 1979 after somebody had the ghastly idea of reshaping this glorious machine and driving it through its front wheels. Rallying was on the verge of its biggest change ever. As Waldegard celebrated becoming the first rally driver to top the world, rumblings were coming out of Ingolstadt. Four-wheel drive? Preposterous. It’ll never catch on… ■