The Ford car company is inherently part of rallying , as cars with a blue oval in their emblem have been competing on tracks since the 1950s. In short, Fords have always been here and won. It's just that the brand doesn't have that many overall titles. It looks like she had a lot of bad luck during her participation.
Ford's origins in motorsport date back to 1901, when the company's founder, Henry Ford , won the first race with his own car. But we can talk about a professional approach to racing only from the 1950s. At that time, the powerful Ford Zephyr sedan appeared on the tracks, which had a 2.5-liter, 145-horsepower engine under the hood. Drivers have won the Monte Carlo Rally , RAC Rally or Safari Rally with it. A number of drivers also started with the small family car Ford Anglia , with which Peter Hughes , for example, was second in the 1963 Safari Rally. Around the same time, the American branch of the first-generation Mustang type and the Australian branch of Ford tried their hand at the rally with giant Falcon cars with V8 engines . Soon, the American team also came to the Falcons , and the Swede Bo Ljungefelt finished in 43rd position in Monte Carlo, but won six measured sections. A year later, the Falcon Futura Sprint was 250 kg lighter and had a more powerful engine. Graham Hill and Jo Schlesser (yes, those from Formula 1 ) also got behind the wheel, but the best drive was again Ljungefelt , who was in the end second behind the unattainable Mini Cooper S with Paddy Hopkirk behind the wheel. The giant cars then lived on in private hands in France, but they were not very suitable for the rally track.
Ford's European branch had the Cortina sedan, which was more suitable for competitions. The original 1.2 engine was soon switched to a 1.5 liter volume. Hughes once again collected laurels behind the wheel of the Cortina , but Roger Clark was particularly successful. When Ford introduced one of the first economy sedans, the Lotus Cortina , it was clear that the car with a sixteen-valve engine was well suited to rallying. With this type, Clark won the Wales Rally in 1965, Swede Bengt Söderström won the Acropolis and RAC Rally and Gilbert Stapeleaere the Geneva Rally. At the end of the 1960s, the second generation Cortina invaded the track, but even the sporty GT model did not build on the success of the Lotus Cortina model. In Germany, they tried to build a very successful Capri RS2600 sports model for rallying on circuits, but even that was not very suitable for competitions.
Nevertheless, Ford soon enjoyed success again, as the racing car evolved from the smaller Escort model. The sporty Escort Twin Cam soon received a five-speed ZF gearbox and disc brakes on all wheels, and drivers Ove Andersson , Hanna Mikkola , Rauno Aaltonen , Timo Mäkinen , Clark , Söderström and Stapeleaere began to collect one victory after another. The Escort soon evolved into a better version of the RS1600 , later even into the top-of-the-line RS2000 , but the advent of economy versions of the Porsche 911 and especially the Alpine A110 specials forced the automaker to build a new racing car. It was created from the second generation of the Escort and received the designation RS1800 , although under the hood was a two-liter with a volume of 250-272 horses. On asphalt tracks, the Escorts were no match for the special Lancia Stratos HF , but on unpaved surfaces they were one of the best cars of the time. The car won the British RAC 8 times in a row. newcomer Björn Waldegaard took Ford 's first title among brands in 1979 and became world champion in the same year. The car company then officially withdrew with the factory team, but the background and support was kept by the private team, in whose colors Ari Vatanen became world champion in 1981 with the same car. Also from the second version appeared the RS2000 model, which had a modified front end.
In the lower category, the Fiesta model started with significant success, the car company mainly tested front-wheel drive racing on it. The third generation Escort switched to front-wheel drive. However, the new type Escort XR3 could not compare with the most powerful cars, because the class B was entering. Ford was also developing a rear-wheel drive Escort RS1700T for her, but the project was soon abandoned as a successful future meant having an all-wheel drive racing car. Thanks to this, the special Ford RS200 was created. Unlike the competition, which more or less tried to match the appearance of regular hatchbacks, the RS200 was a purebred special, unlike anything else. It looked like it would soon become the best car of the group, but it came too late as its debut season in 1986 marked the end for Group B. Ford had two homologated cars for Group A. The Sierra XR4x4 , which had four-wheel drive but a weak naturally aspirated engine, and the Sierra RS Cosworth , which had a powerful engine but only rear-wheel drive. Neither car could match the dominant Delta HF Integrale , but the Cosworth version had a chance of winning on dry tarmac. Therefore, the second generation of the Sierra model was created as the RS Cosworth 4×4 version with a large sedan body. And maybe the dimensions were the reason why this car did not get a single victory in the world competition.
In 1993, a new type appeared – the Ford Escort RS Cosworth . It was essentially a Sierra built into the castle of a smaller Escort . The iconic car with the giant rear wing finally became successful and regularly won, falling short of the overall title. Francois Delecour had the best chance to break the Ford curse in 1994, but he had to miss several competitions due to injury. Nevertheless, " Cossie " belongs to the most successful cars in regional championships, for example Ladislav Křeček won 4 national championship titles with it. The Escort penetrated into other categories as well, when the Kit Car and Maxi kit specials with front-wheel drive were created on its basis. In 1997, however, Ford and Subaru were the first to enter the WRC category, Ford with the Escort WRC car , which was actually just a modified Cosworth . The big development of the purebred special was rejected at Ford at that time, because a year later the new Ford Focus was introduced. In the lower category, Ford fielded the small Puma Kit Car , which later became the Puma S1600 . But she never received the title either.
And it was from the Focus in 1999 that a completely new WRC special was created. In the very first season, Colin McRae won the Safari Rally and the Portugal Rally with him, but he also had a number of technical problems. McRae was soon joined by the returning Carlos Sainz (he already started in Ford with the first Sierra , or Escort Cosworth and WRC ). The Focus RS WRC lost its wing, but not its speed. However, that was when the dominance of French cars began, first the small 206 WRC and later the Xsary WRC with the phenomenal Loeb behind the wheel. Neither the new version with massive bumpers and a large wing, nor the change of experienced drivers for Markko Märtin , Francois Duval , Mikko Hirvonen , Jari-Matti Latvala , Toni Gardemeister and or our Roman Krest , helped. Success only came with ex-world champion Marcus Grönholm , who moved to Ford after Peugeot disappeared from the WRC . While Grönholm helped Ford to inter-brand titles in 2006 and 2007, he fell short of the drivers' title even as Loeb missed several races due to injury, ending his racing career. The Fiesta S1600 was introduced for the junior category, but it still lost to competition from Citroën and Suzuki .
After that, the driving pair of Hirvonen and Latvala settled at Ford , which lasted for 4 seasons. However, none of the drivers ever managed to dethrone Loeb with his Citroën. In 2011, they switched to new smaller cars with 1.6 Turbo engines. Ford introduced the Fiesta RS WRC , but it only won 3 competitions during the season. In Sweden and Britain, however, Ford cars occupied the entire podium. Hirvonen left the team after that season and was replaced by another ex-world champion (and the only driver to beat Loeb outright), Petter Solberg . Ford again won 3 competitions, and occupied the full podium in Portugal, but the performance again forced the automaker to officially withdraw from the World Championship, Latvala moved to the Volkswagen team and Solberg to rallycross . However, Malcolm Wilson kept the Fiestas in the WRC and assembled two teams with the driver line-up of Mads Ostberg , Evgeny Novikov , Juho Hänninen and Thierry Neuville . It was the latter who left a big impression, although he did not win a single competition (victory was shared only by VW and Citroën drivers), thanks to a great number of places on the podium, he became a multiple world champion. it is not surprising that he became the number one of the Hyundai team for this year. Hirvonen appeared again at Ford , joined by rookie Elfyn Ewans and Pole Robert Kubica . However, the dominance of the VW team is even more evident after the departure of Loeb, and no one has yet won with a car of another brand.
The Fiesta proved to be a suitable car for all categories in the rally. In addition to the top WRC , the S2000 version was also presented, with which Mikko Hirvonen won the Monte Carlo Rally 2010. In this category, however, to the delight of Czech fans, the Skoda Fabia S2000 dominates and no one has managed to build a better special. Ford thus entered the R1 and R2 categories. The Fiesta R2 even became the official car for the first 3 years of the junior championship. The latest car is the Ford Fiesta R5 , the first car in the R5 category to be homologated. It is interesting that the first start of this car was Rally Bohemia 2013 , when Jan Sýkora was behind the wheel. Unfortunately, the competition ended in an accident. The Fiesta R5 is currently the best-selling car in the category, and Wilson 's profits fund the running of his WRC team. Let's hope that Ford will stay on the tracks of the World Championship and who knows, in 2017 we will have completely new cars according to the new rules and maybe we will see a successful special of this car manufacturer again.
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