Fiesta potential cheers Matthew Wilson

Matthew Wilson says the end of the current World Rally Car era later this season will be less significant because the new generation machines being prepared for 2011 are so good.

Wilson, who is in his fifth season in the World Rally Championship at the wheel of a Ford Focus RS WRC, is hoping to drive one of the replacement Fiesta RS WRCs from 2011 onwards, which his father Malcolm’s M-Sport organisation is responsible for developing.

Having carried out extensive testing kilometres in the prototype version of the car, Wilson is relishing the prospect of campaigning one of the cars in full competition trim next season.

“For sure it’s the end of an important era but the new car is going to be absolutely awesome so it’s not such a big deal,” said the Briton. “If it wasn’t so nice to drive then you’d be sad to see the current World Rally Cars go. But that’s not the case and with two other new cars competing next year it’s going to be really exciting.”

Asked to go into specifics about the Fiesta’s driving characteristics, Wilson said: “It’s all the good things from the Focus but in a smaller chassis, which is more nimble. It does everything you want it to.”

Wilson’s final scheduled event in a Focus RS WRC is next month’s Wales Rally GB. Afterwards he hopes to secure the budget required to continue in the sport’s highest echelon from 2011.

“We’re just going to try to make the most of it and enjoy the last event in that car in GB,” said Wilson. “There are some good stages in Wales so hopefully it will be a good event for us.

“We’re still working on next year and hopefully I can still be here in some form or another. We’re trying everything because after driving the Fiesta in tests it would be a shame not to be able to drive it in anger. We’re pushing to get everything sorted and hopefully we’ll get it sorted soon.”