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Rally Masters' Choice: FordFocus RS WRC
Rally Masters' Choice: FordFocus RS WRC
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The Ford Focus WRC is a car built for Ford by Malcolm Wilson's M-Sport and based on the Ford Focus production hatchback, developed to compete in the World Rally Championship.
Like all contemporary World Rally Cars, the car is heavily modified from the production version, with which it shares only the basic shape and some parts of the bodyshell. The car features four wheel drive, rather than the front wheel drive of the road car.
The first version of the car was built in 1999 to replace the Ford Escort WRC. It made it's debut in the Monte Carlo Rally with Colin McRae and Simon Jean-Joseph behind the wheels of the two cars. The car's first championship win was the Rally of Portugal in the hands of McRae.
During the season many drivers drove the second Focus of the team - Jean-Joseph for some tarmac events, Petter Solberg for dirt and mud events, and Thomas Rådström and Piero Liatti for the San Remo tarmac roads.
In 2000, Colin McRae and Carlos Sainz drove the Focus WRC in all of the events of the season.
In 2003, Ford released a newly designed Focus WRC for competition during the second part of the season. The car, with most parts redesigned from the ground up, featured a lighter body shell and a new aerodynamically enhanced front bumper and wing. Markko Märtin and François Duval were the main drivers.
Märtin and Duval again drove the two works Fords in 2004. Märtin managed to win the French, Spanish and Mexican rallies, giving him third place in the overall championship. Both drivers left at the end of the season, to join Peugeot (Märtin) and Citroën (Duval).
The 2005 season saw Ford take on two relatively inexperienced drivers; Finn Toni Gardemeister and Czech Roman Kresta. Gardemeister achieved several podiums in the season and showed good pace.
Privateers included Dani Sola and ex-works Subaru driver Mikko Hirvonen. On the Spanish round (Catalunya) Hirvonen achieved the first podium of his career in a privately entered M-Sport Focus.
From the last rally of 2005, Ford campaigned a brand new Focus WRC, following the launch of the new road-going version of the car. Marcus Gronholm and Mikko Hirvonen are Ford's drivers for 2006. In only the car's second event and his first with Ford, Grönholm won the Monte Carlo rally, the first rally of the season, and also went on to take another victory in the second round in Sweden. He crashed out of contention for a third consecutive victory in Mexico. Until the end of the Championship, Grönholm won in Greece, Finland, Turkey, New-Zealand and Great-Britain, while team-mate Hirvonen won in Australia. This secured Ford the M1 Manufacturer Title. Grönholm took 2nd place in Driver's Championship with 111 points (1 point behind Loeb), and Hirvonen finished 3rd with 65 points.
