Ford will be returning to the Australian Rally Championship in 2017 with premier backing from a leading oil company. The newly formed outfit, known as the ‘Good Oil Ford Rally Team’, was unveiled this morning, and with two Fiesta R5 cars in the hands of the Evans brothers, Simon and Eli, there is a new force to be reckoned with in the ARC.
M-Sport's Ford Fiesta R5 would be ready-made for success in the Australian Rally Championship.Well, maybe not... but that is the dream of many. For rallying fans around Australia right now, any news of new manufacturers in the sport is treated like liquid gold.
However, don’t for one second think that this story is leading you into the path of dreams and impossibilities, because perhaps this reality isn’t so far away.
Our proposed car in this scenario for Ford, the Fiesta R5, is a proven winner. Capable of winning many a European event, it is a car that Ford Australia would not have to develop from the ground up - unlike their previous ARC campaign of the mid 2000s.
Ford would have a golden opportunity to be very successful in our championship – just as Subaru does in the 2016 championship with Molly Taylor and the WRX STi.
If a manufacturer like Ford could bring a plan like this to fruition, the ARC could have anticipation and excitement that hasn’t been seen since the days of Possum Bourne and Neal Bates in World Rally Cars.
Despite recent stints from Honda and Citroen in the ARC, there was not a real close head-to-head rivalry like the ones between Possum’s Subaru and Neal’s Toyota.
The personality clashes and rivalries we’ve seen in the past are arguably just as important, and possibly better for a manufacturer than simply having a runaway championship winner who has no competition.
If Ford were to import a pair of R5s, or even RRC (Regional Rally Car) Fiestas from M-Sport in the UK, it would ensure that they would be getting a competitive and reliable car in a very short space of time.
This type of exposure would give Ford an added edge to their Australian sales and would not just propel their image skywards in the eyes of motoring enthusiasts, but it would also give the Australian championship a much needed kick up the backside.
As far as drivers are concerned, there are plenty of talented and deserving Australian drivers sitting around twiddling their thumbs. The Evans brothers, Brendan Reeves and Jack Monkhouse are just a few.
Just imagine some of those drivers in a Fiesta R5… talk about championship contenders!
Another manufacturer would increase the championship from one or two real contenders to four or five - enhancing the media and marketing appeal of the series to levels not seen for more than a decade.
It would help to make the ARC a form of motorsport that the general media would then find hard to ignore.
Subaru has given the championship its first surge of life in quite some time. Perhaps all it needs now is a company like Ford to bring the championship back to its good old days.
- Luke Whitten
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