Confirming a rumor that was doing the rounds at the Top Gear Festival on the weekend, Ford Innate Motorsport announced today that European based rally driver Molly Taylor will be back in Australia to drive a second car for the Canberra based team in Rally Australia, Round 10 of the World Rally Championship (WRC) to be held at Coffs Harbour in September this year.
Taylor has been able to fit the event into a gap in her European Rally Championship campaign with the United Business team and is looking forward to competing in her home round of the World Rally Championship.
“I jumped at the opportunity to join the Ford Innate Motorsport team. Competing on my home round of the WRC has always been a goal of mine. It’s like a local race car driver being offered a drive at Bathurst, you don’t say no. The team has proven they can prepare two reliable cars and they have the support structures in place to give us a serious chance to win the WRC 3 category,” Taylor said.
Adrian Coppin said he was pleased to give Taylor the drive. “The idea has been under discussion since my visit to M-Sport last year, and when I bought our second car for the ARC, we had the opportunity to make it happen. Molly is very talented and it will be great to learn from her as we prepare for Rally Australia and for her Australian fans and supporters to see her in action. We’ll both be trying hard to win the WRC 3 category,” Coppin said.
The Rally Manager for Rally Australia, David Catchpole said, “It is great news for Rally Australia to have secured the first two Australian entries in our round of the WRC. I hope more crews with eligible cars follow this team’s lead and come forward and show the world how strong our sport is.”
Taylor and Coppin will both drive Ford Fiesta R2s in the new WRC 3 category for vehicles conforming to the FIA's R1, R2 and R3 technical regulations.