Francisco
02-17-2011, 01:55 PM
Malcolm Wilson - Exclusive Interview via ALMrally.ru
The head of the WRC manufacturing team is a quite busy man. Especially, when this person manages five teams and one car plant! But still he found time to answer some questions. Here is an exclusive interview of Malcolm Wilson which he gave to our website...
http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTeqimbql_jwK4lbhIzJoN_PREzvSxbS 3Bp4MUxybrcudbkQKt8
ALMrally.ru: We congratulate the Ford drivers with triple victory on the first round of 2011 season in Sweden. Ford brand is represented in WRC by M-Sport for 15 years now. It has given different WRC cars - Escort WRC, at least three generations of Focus RS WRC - and now it's Fiesta RS WRC. Which of these cars is the most highly-developed?
Malcolm Wilson: They were all highly developed in different ways, with the Focus RS WRC we were striving to better what we had already learnt from the Escort WRC and this continued to develop with the Focus over the years. With the Fiesta RS WRC however, we've more or less had to go back to the drawing board to adhere to all the new 'back to basics' regulations including the 1.6Litre engine and minimum weight limit of 1200Kgs for example.
ALMrally.ru: Is Evgeny Novikov just a client of M-Sport or does he participate in taking decisions of the team goals?
Malcolm Wilson: Evgeny Novikov is a valued client of M-Sport and as with all our clients, we hope they can be in a position to fight for championship points.
ALMrally.ru: What are the plans for him? What are the aims?
Malcolm Wilson: We will give Evgeny our full support during the season and hope he can achieve some good results.
ALMrally.ru: What results does M-Sport expect?
Malcolm Wilson: There will certainly be events where I'm sure Evgeny can do really well. The Rally d'Italia Sardegna and Acropolis Rally should in theory be good events for him following his previous good results there.
ALMrally.ru: Private drivers (Mads Ostberg, Henning Solberg, Evgeny Novikov, Matthew Wilson, Dennis Kuipers, Ken Block) will have more or less the same cars as the drivers of the main team. What is the attitude of the M-Sport head to the competition of main and private crews?
Malcolm Wilson: The cars will be the same specification as the Ford Abu Dhabi Team cars. As seen in recent seasons, private crews are playing a major part in the WRC and the more teams entering the competition, the more exciting the Championship becomes for all concerned.
ALMrally.ru You have worked with a lot of drivers and co-drivers. If you had a chance to create two crews as a dream-team who would you choose?
Malcolm Wilson: I think my dream team is still Marcus Gronholm/Timo Rautiainen and Mikko Hirvonen / Jarmo Lehtinen given they were the crews who secured our consecutive WRC Manufacturers' Championship victories in 2006 & 2007 - they don't come any better than that!
ALMrally.ru: What is your impression regarding the new tyres? How were they? How did the Ford crews manage to keep the tyres undamaged (compared to the Citroen drivers who had a lot of punctures)?
Malcolm Wilson: We were happy with the performance of the new Michelin tyres and it's difficult to say how our tyres were undamaged compared to those of other competitors.
Read more: ALMrally.ru (http://www.almrally.ru/english/info/4671/)
The head of the WRC manufacturing team is a quite busy man. Especially, when this person manages five teams and one car plant! But still he found time to answer some questions. Here is an exclusive interview of Malcolm Wilson which he gave to our website...
http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTeqimbql_jwK4lbhIzJoN_PREzvSxbS 3Bp4MUxybrcudbkQKt8
ALMrally.ru: We congratulate the Ford drivers with triple victory on the first round of 2011 season in Sweden. Ford brand is represented in WRC by M-Sport for 15 years now. It has given different WRC cars - Escort WRC, at least three generations of Focus RS WRC - and now it's Fiesta RS WRC. Which of these cars is the most highly-developed?
Malcolm Wilson: They were all highly developed in different ways, with the Focus RS WRC we were striving to better what we had already learnt from the Escort WRC and this continued to develop with the Focus over the years. With the Fiesta RS WRC however, we've more or less had to go back to the drawing board to adhere to all the new 'back to basics' regulations including the 1.6Litre engine and minimum weight limit of 1200Kgs for example.
ALMrally.ru: Is Evgeny Novikov just a client of M-Sport or does he participate in taking decisions of the team goals?
Malcolm Wilson: Evgeny Novikov is a valued client of M-Sport and as with all our clients, we hope they can be in a position to fight for championship points.
ALMrally.ru: What are the plans for him? What are the aims?
Malcolm Wilson: We will give Evgeny our full support during the season and hope he can achieve some good results.
ALMrally.ru: What results does M-Sport expect?
Malcolm Wilson: There will certainly be events where I'm sure Evgeny can do really well. The Rally d'Italia Sardegna and Acropolis Rally should in theory be good events for him following his previous good results there.
ALMrally.ru: Private drivers (Mads Ostberg, Henning Solberg, Evgeny Novikov, Matthew Wilson, Dennis Kuipers, Ken Block) will have more or less the same cars as the drivers of the main team. What is the attitude of the M-Sport head to the competition of main and private crews?
Malcolm Wilson: The cars will be the same specification as the Ford Abu Dhabi Team cars. As seen in recent seasons, private crews are playing a major part in the WRC and the more teams entering the competition, the more exciting the Championship becomes for all concerned.
ALMrally.ru You have worked with a lot of drivers and co-drivers. If you had a chance to create two crews as a dream-team who would you choose?
Malcolm Wilson: I think my dream team is still Marcus Gronholm/Timo Rautiainen and Mikko Hirvonen / Jarmo Lehtinen given they were the crews who secured our consecutive WRC Manufacturers' Championship victories in 2006 & 2007 - they don't come any better than that!
ALMrally.ru: What is your impression regarding the new tyres? How were they? How did the Ford crews manage to keep the tyres undamaged (compared to the Citroen drivers who had a lot of punctures)?
Malcolm Wilson: We were happy with the performance of the new Michelin tyres and it's difficult to say how our tyres were undamaged compared to those of other competitors.
Read more: ALMrally.ru (http://www.almrally.ru/english/info/4671/)