Ford in motorsportIt's a fact that for any car-maker, success in motorsport leads to an increase in sales; and nobody knows it better than the race team designers and marketing men at Ford.
"Race on Sunday, sell on Monday," are the watchwords behind Ford's participation in seemingly every major racing event around the globe, from NASCAR in the US to the World Rally Championship and, until recently, to Formula One. Ford even presides over its own racing series called Formula Ford: a single seat, open wheel class with championships in the UK, Asia, Australia, Canada and South Africa. The following is a round-up of Ford's involvement in international motorsport; as a manufacturer, competitor, administrator and sponsor of races around the globe.
The World Rally Championship
The WRC consists of 16 diverse and gruelling stages in 16 different countries, and winning it is the primary goal of Ford's motorsport ambitions in Europe. It's still no Formula One, but the series is enjoying a surge of popularity at the moment, with races syndicated on more TV stations than before and appealing to a generally wider audience.
The Championship offers separate prizes for the best driver and the best manufacturer, and in 2006 Ford actually scooped the latter (though Sebastien Loeb won the driver's championship in a Citroen). Ford's competition car was the Focus RS WRC 06, which was designed and built by its racing partner M-Sport. Based in Cumbria and run by Malcolm Wilson (himself a former WRC driver), M-Sport has been working with Ford since 1997. Winning the Manufacturer's Championship together - Ford's first time in 27 years - meant that 2006 was easily the most successful for this long-running team partnership.
NASCAR
If a WRC crown is Ford's primary target in Europe, success in NASCAR (or the National Association for Stock Car Racing) is crucial in the American market. As a US professional sport it's second only to the NFL in terms of popularity and TV ratings.
Ford is one of four manufacturers currently producing vehicles for NASCAR's biggest stock car competitions, and there are four teams and a dozen or so drivers competing in Fords in the 2007 NEXTEL Cup, the sport's 'premier league' championship. Of these, Roush Fenway Racing's Matt Kenseth looks to be the most promising. A consistently successful driver, Kenseth won the 2003 Championship in a Ford Taurus, and he has finished top ten in the points standings every year for the past five seasons. Ford's current NASCAR racing model is the Fusion, which had to be completely redesigned before the '07 season in order to meet NASCAR's new entry specifications. Known as the 'Car of Tomorrow', these basically required certain size and body shape changes to be made for the benefit of driver safety. Formula One
Though it has now effectively ended its involvement with the sport, Ford contributed a great deal to F1 over the years. Ford engines, designed by its racing division Cosworth, provided the power behind a staggering 176 Grands Prix victories in the years 1967 to 2003; for such celebrated teams as Lotus and MacLaren.
However, Ford's decision to enter the Formula One Constructors' Championship in 2000 (as Jaguar Racing) proved to have been a mistake after five abortive seasons, and the company saw fit to sell Cosworth along with Jaguar in 2004.
Formula Ford
Fortunately, Ford's 'other' formula has proved to be one of the most endearing in motorsport.
Launched in 1967, the single seat class is seen as a proving-ground for young drivers who will go on to compete in F1 or IndyCar (both Jensen Button and Damon Hill worked their way up via Formula Ford) and it enjoys a perennial popularity at circuits around the world. Ford presides over the various official championships, and supplies the 1.6 litre Duratec engines used to propel the cars from 0-100kmph in under five seconds. The secret of the formula's longevity is the fact that competition cars are not allowed F1-style wings to create downforce. For aerodynamic reasons, this encourages drivers to get close to one another and overtake, making for a more exciting style of racing both for the competitor and spectators. Hoot and cheap car insurance for Fords
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