No immediate plans to expand 2023 WRC Rally1 entries
Nine-time World Champion Sebastien Loeb joined the team to compete in four WRC events last year to boost the team’s championship hopes.
The move proved successful as Loeb and co-driver Isabelle Galmiche won the 2022 season opener at Monte Carlo. The pair also led in Portugal before a crash halted their progress, while mechanical issues denied them a chance to fight for a podium in Kenya and Greece.
Loeb was part of an expanded M-Sport roster last year that included three full-time competitors and up to five Pumas at select events.
This year, however, the team has decided to narrow its efforts to two full-time WRC appearances for Ott Tanak and Pierre-Louis Loubet, while privateer Jourdan Serderidis competes in Monte Carlo, Mexico, Sardinia and Kenya.
M-Sport hasn’t ruled out the prospect of Loeb’s return but has indicated it’s not a top priority at this point in the season.
“If we use someone else it will certainly be later in the season when we may have to take points from our ideas,” team principal Richard Millener told Autosport when asked about the likelihood of Loeb returning.
“But at the moment all resources are flowing into Ott to make it as good as possible for him.”
New signing Tanak has made a strong start to his second tenure at the Ford team, which was marked by a win in Sweden in February. However, the 2019 World Champion is yet to fully embrace the Ford Puma, which led to the Estonian declaring that he and the car were a “mismatch” in Mexico, where he recovered from a turbo failure and finished ninth.
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Regarding Tanak’s frustration in Mexico, Millener says development goes on behind the scenes, but he believes it’s about tweaking the car throughout the year to find the sweet spot.
Ott Tanak, M-Sport Ford World Rally Team
Photo by: M-Sport
“I don’t think he’s particularly uncomfortable, but there are some scenarios where he doesn’t feel entirely safe,” he added.
“The difficult thing for us is that we are only allowed to receive limited data from events and record limited data.
“Development is ongoing but it takes time and we can’t change that overnight and ultimately it’s hard for us when the car is still doing good times. The power stage was one of the toughest of the rally and we were very close to overall victory and for most of the weekend we were setting almost the fastest times.
“There are definitely some things he would like modified to make him more comfortable and we are working on that. But the base of the car doesn’t seem too bad as he wouldn’t post the times he makes.
“I don’t think there is a set end point and I think it will be fine tuning throughout the year because you have different conditions at every rally. He’s still learning the details of the car and we’re working on the feedback he’s giving us.
“In a way it might look like big things from the outside, but realistically it’s an optimization of what we already have. There is no easy big solution, but we just have to keep working on it.”
Tanak will have more space at the wheel of the Puma before the WRC travels to Croatia next month, with an appearance at the Rally of the Ardennes from 31 March to 1 April.