M-Sport Ford will enter a pair of cars for ‘Pedro’ and Adrien Fourmaux in the Rally di Roma Capitale next month.
Taking place between 24-26 July, the rally will play host to the opening round of the FIA European Rally Championship and will be the first major rally after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Home hero Massimo “Pedro” Pedretti will make his Ford Fiesta WRC debut after several WRC3 appearances over the last few years, while Fourmaux will compete in an R5 spec-Firsta for the first time since the his Malcolm Wilson Rally win back in March.
Speaking to ERC The Stage, Fourmaux said: “It will be my first time in this championship and it’s a great opportunity for me and to prove the car is good and we have the pace,”
“I don’t know the rally so it will be a big challenge but I like that. Last year I discovered the World Rally Championship and it will be the same in the ERC because I don’t know the stages, the rallies and the competitors.
“On Rallye Monte-Carlo this year we saw in some stage we are quite good with good pace so we are quite confident on Tarmac, especially in Rome, which I think is similar to [stages] in the south of France. We want to achieve a podium for sure, if I could fight for the victory then I will be really happy. We are considering some extra events in the ERC too, maybe Rally Liepāja, but let’s see what happens after this event.”
M-Sport have joined Hyundai in entering the event as the rallying world begins to get back to normal following the COVID-19 crisis with Dani Sordo and Pierre-Louis Loubet expected to compete in a pair of i20 WRC‘s for the Korean manufacturer. Both Craig Breen and Callum Devine will also enter the rally in R5 i20’s as they get their ERC programmes underway.
