Ford goes forward going around in circles

The Ford World Rally Team is reporting significant steps forward with the Fiesta RS WRC on asphalt after it spent four days at Circuit des Ecuyeres in Fary, France last week.

Ford elected to run under the consistent conditions on offer from the race track near Reims and Norwegian star driver Petter Solberg said it was exactly what it needed to further the development of the Fiesta. The four-day test was run in a broad spectrum of conditions from heavy rain to bright sunshine.

“It was very, very useful,” said Solberg. “We learned so much from the time in the car. We changed everything on the car and from a philosophy and a learning perspective it was fantastic. We have taken a huge step forward during the test.

“The good thing about this test was the chance to run something on the car, then make the change, then run again and find out exactly what happened with the speed. It was Christian [Loriaux] who wanted to go to the circuit and it has made a lot of sense for us to do this - it’s been really good from the driving as well.”

Ford will run its usual pre-event set-up test for the asphalt-based ADAC Rallye Deutschland from 15-17 August. It will spend two days in the Mosel valley and one day in the Baumholder military ranges. The event, round nine of the FIA World Rally Championship, gets underway in Trier on Thursday 23 August.

Of the remaining six rounds of this season’s WRC, four include asphalt stages.