RallyJournal.com had the chance to preview the upcoming episode of the More than Machine documentary series on M-Sport Ford, which contained quite the surprise.
The episode makes it very clear that Adrien Fourmaux, who has had a steady and strong season with Ford, has multiple options for next season. Fourmaux has been rumoured to be moving to Hyundai, among other teams, but no official decisions have been announced yet.
We asked M-Sport team principal Richard Millener directly how much he could reveal at this stage about next season’s driver line-up.
“Not overly. No. Not much,” Millener replied.
“The episode shows Adrian has a lot of opportunities and offers on the table. It doesn’t say what the decisions are,” Millener continued.
Millener states that the team’s objective for next season remains very clear, regardless of which drivers end up in the team’s cars.
“The goal is to remain as we are and be competitive as possible. But at the same time, we have to be realistic of what we can achieve with the budgets we have. And sometimes if that means you have to let somebody go and it’s not just… I’m not just talking about the possibility of Adrien here,” Millener said cryptically.
Millener doesn’t reveal anything directly, but there’s much to be inferred between the lines.
“When we lost Sebastien Ogier at the end of 2018, when we lost (Ott) Tänak, we lost Elfyn (Evans). You know, they’re all difficult times. But you can’t get too downbeat and too upset or worried about what you have to do at that point. The key is, how do we move forward. All those people I just listed. A lot of them came through M-Sport to begin with. So it’s about where do we find the next ones?” Millener reflected.
“That often means that M-Sport doesn’t necessarily always have people in the team that are able to win the championship. Because when they get to the point where they are able to win, we always struggle against the bigger teams with the budgets, but it does mean that we can find the next group of people to come through,” Millener added.
M-Sport is a family-run team in the World Rally Championship and does not enjoy the direct factory support of a major car manufacturer like Toyota and Hyundai.
“I always hope that one day our situation will change, and our budgets will increase, and we’ll be more on a level playing field. I think the biggest opportunity for that to happen is the next set of technical regulations (in 2027, editor’s note), which are very much angled around reducing costs for teams and hopefully level the playing field not only for us but for new manufacturers to join,” Millener said hopefully.
