With the 2023 Dakar Rally two months away and registration formally closing on Monday, M-Sport and Neil Woolridge Motorsport have decided against entering their Ford Ranger T1+, though they will continue working on the truck. DirtFish reported the update on Tuesday.
While joint development of the vehicle has been productive, supply chain disruptions and the tight scheduling make it too difficult for the two teams to fathom a reasonable and competitive entry for 2023. The T1+ category only has two other makes: Prodrive, who fields the Hunter, and Toyota with the Hilux. Antanas Juknevičius, who backed out of the 2023 Rally as he could not afford a competitive T1+ vehicle, mentioned the global parts shortage brought on by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and COVID-19 has made potential manufacturers wary of investing into the class.
“To be honest, I think we could make Dakar in January, but we’re not 100% sure we can do it the way it needs to be done,” M-Sport head Malcolm Wilson told DirtFish. “Like the rest of the world, we’re having some supply chain issues – we understood these would be a factor and that was why we didn’t make any firm commitments to Dakar.”
M-Sport, a longtime World Rally Championship outfit with Ford factory support, formed a partnership with NWM in April to race the Dakar Rally. NWM fields Rangers in the South African Rally Raid Championship‘s new T1+ class, where Neil Woolridge’s son Gareth sits fifth in points. The only other vehicle competing in T1+ besides the Ranger is the Hilux, and the top four in the standings all race Hiluxes for Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa.
The Raptor is a popular vehicle in off-road racing, with the Ranger Raptor being announced as a Baja 1000 entry on Monday while Martin Prokop races a Raptor variant in rally raid. The T1+ stands out from the T1 as it is larger and has more suspension travel.
M-Sport WRC driver Adrien Fourmaux recently tested the Ranger T1+ in Dubai. His team-mate Sébastien Loeb is heavily involved with the Hunter programme and finished runner-up in the 2022 World Rally-Raid Championship T1 points battle.
