M-Sport Ford World Rally Team boss Richard Millener says he won’t be rushed into confirming its drivers for the 2022 World Rally Championship season.
Millener has hinted that the line-up could even remain unchanged from this year, with Gus Greensmith, Adrien Fourmaux and Teemu Suninen all candidates to continue driving for the British outfit.
M-Sport Ford recently unveiled its 2022 car, which is based on the Ford Puma, at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, taking the team into WRC’s new hybrid era.
But the identity of who will be driving the car remains unconfirmed and Millener is no rush to finalise that as the team eyes a ‘big name’ after losing both Sebastien Ogier and Elfyn Evans.
“I think there’s still a few options. There’s still no rush from our side, people can guess quite easily the number of seats that are still available, the number of drivers that are still available,” Millener told WRC.com.
“I’d be lying if I said we didn’t speak to every single person that’s available, but ultimately, like I’ve said in previous interviews, all three of the drivers we have all have good potential and if we stayed as we are then I still wouldn’t be disappointed.”
The teams trio of drivers sit 8th, 10th and 11th in the standings, but Millener was encouraged by the recent performances in Rally Safari and Croatia.
“We’ve shown we can still be competitive,” he added. “We might not be pushing 100 per cent for every rally to try and win, but events like Safari and Croatia show we can be competitive.
“I know the media focused heavily on Adrien in Safari, but Gus still beat him on the stage times. I think it’s very fair to say they’re both driving at the same pace.
“In terms of next season, like I said: there’s no real rush, but obviously we would like to get things in place sooner rather than later because those drivers would test the [2022] car more and more towards the start of next year to get more comfortable with these new regulations.
“It’s a bit more pressing maybe than last year when we used the same car, but we’re not in a position to announce anything as yet.”
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