Ford: Starting the new year with a young team
NEW ADDITIONS M-Sport Ford is entering the 2020 World Rally Championship with three promising talents. With the Finn Esapekka Lappi, the British team has a winning driver who is also well-known in Switzerland. Esapekka Lappi knows his way around the wheel of a Ford: The soon-to-be 29-year-old Finn secured the championship title in a Fiesta S2000 in 2012 [...]
Esapekka Lappi knows his way around the wheel of a Ford: The soon-to-be 29-year-old Finn secured the championship title in his home country in 2012 in a Fiesta S2000. He then drove a Skoda for four years and won the WRC2 title in a Fabia R5 in 2016. Lappi became known in Switzerland as the winner of the 2014 Rallye du Valais.
Two Finns and a youngster from England
Lappi drove for Toyota with navigator Janne Ferm in 2017 and 2018, and for Citroën last year. With the Yaris WRC, they also took the only victory in a WRC round to date in front of their own fans in Finland. In addition, there are three further second places and a total of seven podium finishes. Lappi enjoys a reputation as an all-rounder who is very fast on practically any surface and is now set to prove this in the Ford Fiesta WRC from 2020.
Teemu Suninen remains the second regular driver. The 25-year-old Finn made it onto the podium for the first time in 2018. Last year, Suninen led the intermediate classification of a WRC round several times, but has not yet been able to translate his speed into a WRC victory.
The third man in the team will be 23-year-old Gus Greensmith. The British youngster will be competing in nine WRC rallies with a third example of the approximately 380 hp turbo all-wheel drive car.
Young team with ambitions
In view of an average age of around 25 years, M-Sport Ford is sending a fairly young driver trio into the race. The team also relies on dedicated young engineers: on average, they are only 30 years old. Even team boss Richard Millener is by far the youngest of his colleagues at 35.
The team founded and led by Malcolm Wilson is thus returning to its roots in several respects.
Malcolm Wilson: "Having two Finns in the team is reminiscent of the time when M-Sport Ford achieved fantastic success with Marcus Grönholm, Mikko Hirvonen and Jari-Matti Latvala. I'm looking forward to seeing how the next generation of flying Finns develops. Supporting young talent has always been a cornerstone of our company philosophy. Our crew may still be very young, but they still have the experience and ambition to achieve great things. I'm excited to see what 2020 will bring us."
