Hirvonen & Evans Confirmed for M-Sport
The pieces of the WRC driver-market jigsaw continue to fall into place after M-Sport announced that Mikko Hirvonen will return to the team and partner WRC2 graduate Elfyn Evans in its World Rally Championship Fords for 2014.
Hirvonen and Evans will run as the official M-Sport World Rally Team, with discussions over a title sponsor still ongoing. Robert Kubica has already been announced as part of the M-Sport line-up, but running under the Lotos WRT banner.
Hirvonen is returning to M-Sport having been part of its factory Ford programme from 2006-11 when he took 11 of his 12 WRC wins and came within a point of beating Sebastien Loeb to the 2009 title. He then began a fallow period as Citroen team leader, when he never seemed to regain the spark of his previous form.
M-Sport backed 2012 WRC Academy champion Evans through his WRC2 campaign last year and he also stepped into Nasser Al-Attiyah's World Rally Car for Rally Italy, finishing sixth on his top-level debut.
Elfyn Evans had a great introduction to the sport, being the 24-year-old son of 1996 British champion and sometime factory Ford WRC driver Gwyndaf Evans. An enthusiastic Elfyn said, "Having Mikko and Jarmo in the team is certainly a big positive for us. They know what it takes to win at this level and we can learn a lot from them."
13th December, 2013