Ford's all-new Fiesta R5 has been one of the most awaited cars in recent times, and Martin Holmes speaks exclusively to M-Sport's Bernardo Fernandes about the technical design of the car.
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28-year old engineer, Bernardo Fernandes, joined M-Sport at the end of June 2014, beginning his present work heading the new generation Fiesta R5 project, after working as WRC Engineer for both Ott Tanak and Sebastien Ogier.
Fernandes had already gained experience of the previous R5 cars when he was still working back home in Portugal, with a team competing on the national championships at the start of the 2014 season.
Work on the new version Fiesta R5 had already started in January 2018 with a group of three designers, whilst most of the design team was still working on previous projects.
“By the beginning of April we had the full design team with us. We received the first new bodyshell in November 2018, which was when we started to build the first test car, the first test run was the first week of December," he told RallySport Magazine.
"I knew from my previous work that the original Fiesta R5 was competitive and I believed the car was easy to drive for customers. I think the worst part was its reliability, there were some points on the car which suffered considerably, notably the electrical steering rack.
"Teams faced a series of different challenges to what we normally faced, and it was not easy to deal with a production electric steering rack on a rally car. An electrical rack from a production car has certain systems behind it that are not optimal for a rally car in terms of the software side.
"We have worked with the manufacturer to iron out those issues, not just from a software side, but also on the hardware side. With it being a production-based rack it was not perhaps the best suited for the application.”
The new Mark 8 Fiesta R5 rally car is a completely new homologation, based, like the current World Rally Car and the R2 (launched earlier in 2019), on the ST line version.
“The connection is centred very much just on the bodyshell. So the rally car bodyshell is not exactly the same, but the R5 shares more than 95% of the components with the WRC.
"Right from the start we certainly tried to maximise the performance. On the old R5 car, which was the first time we were dealing with a cost-cut category, it was a bit difficult sometimes to know how to achieve the parts at a competitive cost and still be performant.
"For the new car we worked quite a bit, especially in terms of weight. The old car was not easy to get down to the minimum weight, so we have made sure that on this car it is much easier to do that.”
The original Fiesta R5 was the first R5 car to be developed, and therefore subsequent R5 manufacturers have had the opportunity to take benefit from M-Sport’s experience.
“With the new R5 we looked at other competitors and how they took advantage of the regulations, in particular the bodyshell regulation, how they sometimes used simpler designs that we thought the regulations did not fully allow.
"Now, having seen other cars being homologated like that, we know we can. Obviously with simpler designs the car becomes in a way cheaper and also lighter.
"M-Sport did the first Fiesta R5 and then other competitors looked at ours and built on that, now we have built on what our competitors have done and also on the experience we have from the WRC car obviously.
"The R5 regulations have not significantly change for R5 since the original design, there have been mostly clarifications.”
The new Fiesta R5 has a different engine from the previous car.
“The engine and cylinder head have taken a different base unit compared to the previous car. This has allowed us to tune the characteristics of the engine powerband to better suit an R5 rally car.
"It is the B515 'Ecosport' unit similar to what is used in the Kuga. The engine is only produced in the US, at the Dearborn plant. It is the only 2.0L direct injected engine still in production that does not have an exhaust manifold integral to the cylinder head.
"It does start out as a 2.0L, but for rallying we reduced the capacity to 1620cc. The change was mainly how we were able to tune the engine to reach the characteristics that we wanted.
"We were a bit limited with the old car, where we had already done two evolutions of the engine and so we needed to start afresh to be able to reach the performance and the powerband range that we wanted.
"In terms of the new production engine not so much is different, in terms of the rally car engine certainly we've optimised several of the components, especially targeting the minimum weight allowed by the regulations. So we have definitely worked a lot on reducing the weight and inertia of the rally car engine.”
The transmission is similar to the previous car.
“In terms of the gearbox and rear differential, we did not have many problems with the previous car, so we just took the opportunity to update small items in the transmission set-up, that allows us to extend their life a little bit.
"We are still with Sadev, the casings are very much the same.
"We have updated the suspension geometry, particularly with the lessons we have learned from the WRC project. The suspension geometry more closely resembles the WRC car than the previous R5.
"And then we also introduced something which our competitors already have, which is adjustability on the anti-roll bar set-up, so different positions on the wishbone. We have tried to bring the unsprung mass down to a minimum as well, and we have worked with Reiger to fit aluminium strut bodies to our dampers.
"We have prioritised traction with this car and also made it more easy to drive. Nowadays there is a philosophy that the cars do not need to be driven as much sideways, so we have adjusted our suspension geometry so that the car does not need to be put at a large slip angle, and therefore extract the most from the tyres.
"Regarding the brakes, we have gone over to Brembo brakes for this project, like with the WRC; mainly it’s a technical partnership we have been developing with Brembo which offered the opportunity to lower the mass of the parts. The main difference is they are lighter.”
Cost saving is a permanent characteristic of R5 design work.
“In terms of the bodyshell we certainly took some time to try and simplify the manufacture of certain components, mostly because the bodyshell is also a cost-cut component, and labour is quite a big part of that cost. So we have tried to decrease the labour as much as possible.
"We have also had to do a new roll cage design because that was one of the regulations that was updated, both in R5 and WRC, where the roll cage tube diameters have increased in certain areas.
"In relation to general cost-cutting, obviously it reaches a point where there is not much more with any first design. Second time round you already have a starting point, so you can always improve on.”
It is now ‘all systems go’ for the new Fiesta R5. The car first appears as a course car in Ypres at the end of June in the hands of Eric Camilli, then the first competition entry will be in Estonia in mid-July with Teemu Suninen at the wheel.
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"Teams faced a series of different challenges to what we normally faced, and it was not easy to deal with a production electric steering rack on a rally car. An electrical rack from a production car has certain systems behind it that are not optimal for a rally car in terms of the software side.
"We have worked with the manufacturer to iron out those issues, not just from a software side, but also on the hardware side. With it being a production-based rack it was not perhaps the best suited for the application.”
The new Mark 8 Fiesta R5 rally car is a completely new homologation, based, like the current World Rally Car and the R2 (launched earlier in 2019), on the ST line version.
“The connection is centred very much just on the bodyshell. So the rally car bodyshell is not exactly the same, but the R5 shares more than 95% of the components with the WRC.
"Right from the start we certainly tried to maximise the performance. On the old R5 car, which was the first time we were dealing with a cost-cut category, it was a bit difficult sometimes to know how to achieve the parts at a competitive cost and still be performant.
"For the new car we worked quite a bit, especially in terms of weight. The old car was not easy to get down to the minimum weight, so we have made sure that on this car it is much easier to do that.”
The original Fiesta R5 was the first R5 car to be developed, and therefore subsequent R5 manufacturers have had the opportunity to take benefit from M-Sport’s experience.
“With the new R5 we looked at other competitors and how they took advantage of the regulations, in particular the bodyshell regulation, how they sometimes used simpler designs that we thought the regulations did not fully allow.
"Now, having seen other cars being homologated like that, we know we can. Obviously with simpler designs the car becomes in a way cheaper and also lighter.
"M-Sport did the first Fiesta R5 and then other competitors looked at ours and built on that, now we have built on what our competitors have done and also on the experience we have from the WRC car obviously.
"The R5 regulations have not significantly change for R5 since the original design, there have been mostly clarifications.”
The new Fiesta R5 has a different engine from the previous car.
“The engine and cylinder head have taken a different base unit compared to the previous car. This has allowed us to tune the characteristics of the engine powerband to better suit an R5 rally car.
"It is the B515 'Ecosport' unit similar to what is used in the Kuga. The engine is only produced in the US, at the Dearborn plant. It is the only 2.0L direct injected engine still in production that does not have an exhaust manifold integral to the cylinder head.
"It does start out as a 2.0L, but for rallying we reduced the capacity to 1620cc. The change was mainly how we were able to tune the engine to reach the characteristics that we wanted.
"We were a bit limited with the old car, where we had already done two evolutions of the engine and so we needed to start afresh to be able to reach the performance and the powerband range that we wanted.
"In terms of the new production engine not so much is different, in terms of the rally car engine certainly we've optimised several of the components, especially targeting the minimum weight allowed by the regulations. So we have definitely worked a lot on reducing the weight and inertia of the rally car engine.”
The transmission is similar to the previous car.
“In terms of the gearbox and rear differential, we did not have many problems with the previous car, so we just took the opportunity to update small items in the transmission set-up, that allows us to extend their life a little bit.
"We are still with Sadev, the casings are very much the same.
"We have updated the suspension geometry, particularly with the lessons we have learned from the WRC project. The suspension geometry more closely resembles the WRC car than the previous R5.
