Team Aon scored best results for Ford

The latest WTCC meeting at Marrakech marked Ford’s best performance in the championship so far, as both Team Aon’s Focus cars scored the first points for the Blue Oval brand.

Tom Chilton’s seventh place in Morocco’s Race 1 bettered the best result of a Ford car in WTCC, Patrick Bernhardt’s ninth at Macau, back in 2005. And in the second race James Nash did even better, finishing sixth after staying in the lead for four laps. The first ever leading laps for Ford.

As this happened on the team’s third appearance in the world championship, principal Mike Earle was understandably pleased. “It is extremely encouraging to have led a WTCC race with James in only our third event, he did a brilliant job to hold onto that for four laps, especially with the damage from race one. We always said that our main objective for this year was to finish in the top ten and this weekend we achieved that so the whole team can be proud with the steps they’ve made with the car.”

Both drivers praised the team for their job.

“It was a great feeling to have led the race and come home with points for me and the team. I would have liked to have held onto the lead for longer but I’ve never driven around here before and it seems like a track where experience really pays off. The boys did an absolutely stunning job to fix my car up for the second race in such a limited time,” Nash said.

And Chilton echoed: “I had a cracking start however I had to make sure that I stayed out of the trouble that was going on ahead of me – which I did thankfully. There were a few battles which I got involved in which made the race very exciting. The team have done a great job all weekend and it feels absolutely amazing to get the first points for them.”