M-Sport, the Cumbrian based team behind the development of the Ford Fiesta S2000 rally car, were today celebrating a dream debut which saw the car take international victories on two continents within 24 hours to cement a unique international debut for the recently launched vehicle.
Victory for Mikko Hirvonen and Jarmo Lehtinen on the historic Monte Carlo Rally was supported by victory on the Q-Tel Qatar Rally by Nasser Al Attiyah and his Italian co-driver Giovanni Bernacchini in an Autotek supported version of the newly released car.
Only homologated by the FIA on 15th January 2010, the Ford Fiesta S2000, developed by M-Sport’s technical team under the direction of Christian Loriaux, took back-to-back victories in what can arguably be described as two of the toughest tarmac and gravel events in the international calendar.
M-Sport Managing Director Malcolm Wilson OBE was keen to point out the contribution made by all of the team towards this historic success:
"This really is a perfect debut for the Fiesta S2000. The performance of the car on both the demanding stages of the Monte and the incredibly rough stages in Qatar has proven the exciting potential of the car in all conditions. The results are a just-reward for the hard work and dedication that has been shown by everyone involved in the development of the car. Our technical partners have excelled and the fantastic team effort that has seen all the departments at M-Sport pull out all the stops to get these cars to the start-line under difficult conditions must be applauded.”
This weekend’s result is just the tip of the iceberg for the Ford Fiesta S2000 rally car as M-Sport now begin the daunting task of delivering 22 cars to customer teams over the next six weeks with cars going to Finland, Czech Republic, Ireland, Spain, South Africa, Poland, Portugal, Abu Dhabi and Italy.
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