Breen & Nagle join M-Sport for 2022/3
It's the news we've been expecting; M-Sport Ford have announced that Craig Breen and Paul Nagle will spearhead the M-Sport Ford World Rally team's attack on the 2022 and 2023 FIA World Rally Championship. The multi-year agreement will see their recent impressive performances rewarded with a full WRC campaign behind the wheel of the all-new M-Sport Ford Puma Hybrid Rally1 car.
In what is the most exciting development in the 31 year old's WRC career, Breen will receive the full commitment and expertise of the Cumbrian squad as they aim to replicate their successes in 2017 and 2018, the last time there was such a radical overhaul of the sporting and technical regulations.
Having sampled the Puma Hybrid Rally1 car on gravel in Cumbria a few weeks ago, Breen was more than impressed and excited by the team's latest creation and is now fully focused on delivering the results and success that both he and the squad know is possible.
2022 will see all-new technical regulations, with the WRC moving to a new and exciting era of competition. Space frame chassis coupled with 100kw Hybrid Motors delivering additional 130hp bursts of power throughout the special stages and 100% sustainable fuel moves the sport into a more environmentally conscious direction, whilst still retaining the core DNA of the world's most exciting off-road motorsport series.
Despite only ever having partial WRC campaigns to date, recent results have seen Breen and Nagle become the talk of the service park. A third placed finish on last weekend's Rally Finland has meant the Irishman has achieved four podiums in his last seven events, and he currently lies 6th in the drivers' championship despite only competing in half of the season's events!
Breen and Nagle have long been in the sights of M-Sport Managing Director, Malcolm Wilson. Having won the 2011 FIA WRC Academy in an M-Sport-built Fiesta R2, this championship title would deliver Breen a career-transforming prize package allowing him to step up to the wheel of a Ford Fiesta S2000. The following season Breen would win four S-WRC events seeing him take another outright championship title.
Thanks to M-Sport-s 'Ladder of Opportunity,' Breen was then able to kick-start his career at the top level, competing up until now partial season programmes with a number of other WRC teams, but in 2022 he will return to where it all began, with the 2017 Manufacturers and Drivers', and 2018 Drivers' WRC Champions. M-Sport and Breen now have the chance to add to Breen's impressive recent statistics, and are more determined than ever to help him succeed in what looks to be one of the most exciting seasons in decades.
Breen's full-time career as an M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1 driver will start in October with a multi-surface test in Spain. With just over 100 days before the team lines up for the start of the iconic Monte-Carlo Rally, the team cannot wait to start this new chapter and bring success to him, the team and his global fan base.
News of other crews in M-Sport's driving line-up for next season will be announced in due course.
8th October, 2021