M-Sport technicians went the long way home from Rally Mexico earlier this month, opting to stop off at Ford Performance in Charlotte, North Carolina for a check over.
Ford Performance develops both NASCAR and GT programmes at Charlotte, where it houses its research and technology development centre, which M-Sport was able to utilise for the first time on a World Rally Car.
The NASCAR technology centre cast its eye over the team's Ford Fiesta during the visit which head of rally engineering Chris Williams described as a "very worthwhile" detour.
"We wanted to get the car out there, but in a week when the test car was already in Corsica, it was really busy,” said Williams. “We weren't exactly passing, but we were in the vicinity on the way back from Mexico, so that made sense.
"We learned from the trip, which is good. We validated a lot of what we've already done with Ford in CFD [Computational Fluid Dynamics], so it was very worthwhile.
"We spent time at Windshear [a nearby rolling road wind tunnel]. It was the first time this car's been on that and it helped. Windshear was the main thing we went for and it was very useful. We've already implemented some stuff."
Williams added that much of the development work was for the longer-term, but admitted there would be shorter-term upgrades coming from the trip as well. The Fiesta WRC is expected to return to Charlotte later this season to continue using Ford Performance's development facility.
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