M-Sport is a motorsport engineering company headquartered at Dovenby Hall near Cockermouth, United Kingdom. It is primarily known for entering the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) since 1997 in partnership with Ford, manufacturing race and rally cars, and providing parts and motorsport services to customers. The company has an automotive evaluation facility at its headquarters, and a second manufacturing facility in Kraków, Poland.[1][2][3]
In 2023, the M-Sport Ford World Rally Team contest the World Rally Championship and WRC2 support championship. M-Sport also organise, operate and act as promoter of the Junior WRC championship on behalf of the FIA. They also provide the official TOCA engine option used in BTCC since 2022.
History
M-Sport began in 1979 when rally driver Malcolm Wilson formed Malcolm Wilson Motorsport, primarily to facilitate his own rallying career and offering motorsport contracting services to customers such as rally car preparation.[4] Reflecting the career of Malcolm Wilson as a driver, the company grew steadily through the 1980s.[5] Wilson and his wife Elaine formed a second company in 1987, M-Sport Limited (known as M. Sport Limited until 2019), trading and manufacturing rally car parts and components.[1]
Following the withdrawal of Ford from motorsport entries in the mid-1990s, M-Sport were awarded the contract to operate and promote the Ford World Rally Team in the WRC from 1997 with Wilson as Team Principal. With his driving career effectively over, M-Sport assumed all trade of Malcolm Wilson Motorsport,[6] legally from January 1st 1998.[1]
The business expanded over time to become a successful manufacturer of rally cars, sold to competitors worldwide.[7] By 2021, they offered rally cars in all 5 tiers of the Rally Pyramid.
In 2022, M-Sport released the new Ford Puma Rally1 with hybrid powertrain for Rally1 category. Hybrid system will recover energy during braking and can be deployed via electric motor together with the internal combustion engine.[8][9]
At the end of 1996, Ford Motorsport selected the company to spearhead the Ford team's entry for the 1997 World Rally Championship season with the Ford Escort WRC, a hastily built World Rally Car equivalent of the Group A car. Victories in Greece and Indonesia saw faith in the small team rewarded, and they went on to finish runner-up in the manufacturers' championship.
By the middle of 1998, Ford chose M-Sport to design and build the new Ford Focus WRC. The new car appeared in 1999 with a new driver, Colin McRae, and immediately sprang to the attention of the world press by recording fastest stage times on its first event, the Monte Carlo Rally. However, the two cars entered were excluded from the event due to the use of an illegal modified water pump. By the third event — the Safari Rally in Kenya — the team had scored its first WRC victory. A month later, an on-form Colin McRae made it two in a row at the Rally of Portugal.[citation needed]
With a move to new premises at Dovenby Hall, M-Sport expanded rapidly, employing over 170 people. In 2006, the Wilson-led Ford team took the manufacturers' World Rally championship title;[10] it was the first time Ford had achieved this feat in 25 years of competing. Since then, M-Sport Ford won seven FIA World Rally Championships, with 61 victories and 262 podiums.[11]
The 2009 season saw Mikko Hirvonen and Citroën'sSébastien Loeb fight a closely fought battle throughout the year which ended with Loeb the victor by just one point.
M-Sport supplied cars, personnel, servicing support and/or other entry services to the following customer teams to compete in the World Rally Championship for Manufacturers:
The company ran the one-make Fiesta Sporting Trophy rally series, which it launched in 2006, and the Fiesta Sporting Trophy International (FSTi) series.[10][14][15]
At the beginning of 2009 Ford with M-Sport started work on a S2000 rally version of the new Ford Fiesta. The new car, designed by Christian Loriaux, was launched on 18 November 2009 at M-Sport's headquarters. The car made its public debut as a course car at the IRC Rally Scotland driven by Matthew Wilson. Ford did not run a works entry in the 2010 IRC but M-Sport did its own programme of events with Ford's support both on the technical and financial side.[17] M-Sport announced on 8 January 2010 that it was entering the IRC which means that Ford will be a registered manufacturer in the series.[18] Works Ford WRC driver Mikko Hirvonen gave the car its first competitive outing on the Monte Carlo Rally leading the event from start to finish.[19]
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