M-Sport: PH Meets
Behind the scenes at M-Sport's rally HQ
Credit to Malcolm Wilson though; he bought Dovenby Hall as a semi-derelict former psychiatric hospital, gutted it, restored it and then built a factory unit on the back where his firm M-Sport builds and prepares every kind of rally car. More recently this has been joined by the job of building and running Bentley's swaggering GT3 cars. Expansion plans are well under way to add an additional manufacturing unit and on-site test track to create a motorsport centre of excellence in the heart of Wilson's native Cumbria.
The old house has been restored into something approaching its former glory, the lavish dining rooms now available to hire. As you progress through the building it becomes steadily more like your regular specialist car manufacturer, offices full of CAD operators, admin and marketing teams eventually opening out into the gleaming shop floor where the physical manifestation of all this expertise takes shape. Down one side bays filled with R5 and WRC Fiestas in for strip-down and repair hum with activity; on the other new cars are prepped and built, body-in-white shells awaiting fit powertrains and interiors.
Off to the sides are rooms with machine shops, powertrain test and assembly areas, a bodyshop and the various other facilities required to build, run and support rally cars. There's a constant hum of activity and the quiet air of folk knowing what they're about and cracking on with it.
Our tour guide Richard Millener is M-Sport's Client Liaison Manager and knows his drill well. Handily the first car we encounter is an R1 Fiesta, this being the first rung on the product ladder and comprising the basics for clubman rallying. At this level that's little more than an FIA-certified cage, safety gear install and basic competition prep, starting from around eight grand.
R2 cars are based on 1.0-litre Ecoboost Fiestas and the kit costs around £30K for customers to install themselves, or provide to their local specialist prep shop. This has around 175hp - 200hp would be possible, but M-Sport has to use the stock turbo to keep the car on terms with the traditionally normally-aspirated equivalents in the category. As well as R2-level events there's a one-make Drive DMACK Fiesta Trophy, the 250 kits thus sold offering a sense of M-Sport's scale.
The bare shell alongside is where things start getting serious. This is for an R5 Fiesta, described by Richard as M-Sport's "flagship customer car" and what counts for bread and butter business. Fairly exotic bread and butter, it has to be said. Four-wheel drive, sequential gearboxes, bespoke suspension components and 280hp mean the R5s are serious pieces of kit, not that far off WRC in pace but - relatively - more affordable, given the FIA-mandated cost cap on purchase and parts prices. As we circulate Richard points out the lanky Finn deep in discussion with technicians completing an R5 Fiesta - if the face looks familiar it's because it's Ari Vatanen's son Max, keeping the family tradition alive. This year he's focusing on the British Rally Championship, won 40 years ago by his father in - appropriately enough - a Ford. He spends his downtime working at nearby DMACK and here at M-Sport, helping to build cars, shaking them down and generally getting stuck in with the nuts and bolts side of the business.
Fancy an R5 then? A complete car ready to run would cost you around £170K against £450K for a WRC car, and it takes two weeks to prepare the shell. It takes another week to assemble a car, M-Sport having sold around 150 and production allocated until June. A new Evo engine package is also selling well.
Have a big off and it'll cost you a capped £16K for a new shell or around £45K for a full rebuild. If that sounds a lot consider R5 suspension uprights are around £3K apiece, compared with more like £10K for their WRC equivalents.
It's credit to M-Sport its Fiestas are as competitive and in demand as they are, its position as an independent placing additional challenges on development compared to manufacturer rivals like Skoda. Cost and homologation restrictions do their best to level the playing field but there's no escaping the advantages of being part of VW's wider WRC and passenger car operations brings. Later in the year Hyundai will have its own customer R5 version of the i20 in the market too.
M-Sport meanwhile relies on a more traditional model of working directly with trusted and long-standing specialist suppliers like Reiger for its suspension, Sadev and X-Trac for transmissions, AP Racing, Alcon and Goodridge for brakes and homegrown companies like Chris Tullett Exhausts and Carlisle based DMACK tyres. A taste of this can be found in the M-Sport Edition Fiesta we drove recently, M-Sport keen to bring a flavour of what it does on the world rallying stage to the hot hatch buying masses.
The current WRC cars remain the top tier of M-Sport's business though, the R5 cars effectively funding M-Sport's currently self-sponsored factory team of Norwegians Mads Ostberg and Ola Floene plus Frenchman Eric Camilli and his co-driver Benjamin Veillas, along with customer WRC teams. It's an expensive business though, Richard saying it costs about £85 per stage kilometre to run a car in WRC. Assuming nothing goes wrong and you keep it on the stage.
That's just the start. A team will have to juggle four different transmission sets between tarmac and gravel events at £50K each, have a spare £9K turbo and another sets of hubs, uprights and dampers for each corner of the car at £10K each. Engines need a £30K rebuild after 1,600km - roughly four events - and then you've got to factor in transport and logistics of £90-130K per event to cover entries, fuel, accommodation, recce cars, catering and all the rest.
It's a hugely impressive enterprise and one that's growing further, what with the Bentley track operation, the expansion of the facilities, the test track and more besides. Rallying may - undeservedly - have dropped a little off the radar compared with its glory days. As such it's great that factory teams like VW, Skoda and Hyundai are still there at the highest level of the sport. Greater still that this little corner of the Lake District is able to field cars and expertise to keep them honest and ensure fighting British spirit is at the heart of WRC.
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Feature photos: Sim Mainey
[Archive photo: LAT]
he bought Dovenby Hall as a semi-derelict former psychiatric hospital, gutted it, restored it and then built a factory unit on the back where his firm M-Sport builds and prepares *ever kind* of rally car. More recently this has been *joined the job* of building and running Bentley's swaggering GT3 cars.
Early gin on this paragraph I suspect!!!
Good insight though, thank you. Rallying is the motorsport I know least about.
he bought Dovenby Hall as a semi-derelict former psychiatric hospital, gutted it, restored it and then built a factory unit on the back where his firm M-Sport builds and prepares *ever kind* of rally car. More recently this has been *joined the job* of building and running Bentley's swaggering GT3 cars.
Early gin on this paragraph I suspect!!!
Good insight though, thank you. Rallying is the motorsport I know least about.
Matt
Matt
Fantastic insight to the M-Sport business. Mr Wilson has done an amazing job considering Ford dropped him in it by leaving the WRC.
You would think Ford would enter back into the WRC as Malcolm really has helped the brand stay there with his own funds.
Unfortunately until the FIA wise up and sort the sport out the appeal is just not as it use to be.
There are extremely impressive young drivers just not able to move up into these WRC cars due to the horrendous costs involved so the R5 does help in this aspect which has to be applauded.
With my rose tinted glasses on the best era was the Group B era but this will never happen again.
To attract new fans to the sport you really need to have something which is so out there that people just can't ignore in any longer but alas again the FIA seem to like messing up all forms of motorsport not just rallying.
I am sure if this happened then Ford would want to be part of the WRC yet again.
Yes my grammar can be suspect too but please don't point it out.
Reminds me of the olden days when Malcolm Wilson was an active competitor. Rather like a David Coulthard of special stage rallying. Rallying then was really scintilating and exhilerating.
His achievements with M-Sport inspire feelings of awe! I would like to think he'll turn down a knighthood when it's offered. But I suppose it would help the brand to take it, like Prodrive's Sir David Richards.
Rallying is such a bUZZZZZ.
Anyway seriously now.
Aren't the latest breed just as manic and certainly as fast as the group B cars? I suppose all the ABS traction control etc... means they are easier to drive fast.
Its amazing the way companies like M-Sport are able to conjure cars on a restircted tight budget but still produce something special, bit like Ginetta.
This real competition, people using their brains and skill rather than just the budget.
The model only works though as long as the money spinners keep selling well, M sport deserve to do well, they risk a lot by doing the WRC and deserve to keep going.
Ford seem to be ahead of everyone at the moment in the small engine dept, the new 3 cyl 1.0 seems amazing.
Thanks for the article MAtt birD
You would think Ford would enter back into the WRC as Malcolm really has helped the brand stay there with his own funds.
I had free access to the Ford team and MW (which MW was driving in and was the swansong event for the works Cossie Sierra's in the WRC) on the '92 RAC Rally via a previous Ford team employee within the team I was working for on the event.
In the latter years as an official 'works' team, one felt that Ford weren't providing MW with a budget to compete with Citroen et al....with inevitable results; the wins became scarce and drivers with a budget were taken on. Since pulling out completely, M-Sport have rarely looked like winning an event, unless conditions become lottery like.
It's to his credit that MW has carried on and spotted the business opportunities; the Fiesta R5 is a massive success, and getting the Bentley GT3 contract is a huge plus - and proof that they can build and run a racing car as well as a rally car!!
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