Uncertainty hangs over the composition of the M-Sport team for the 2025 World Rally Championship, while speculation is rife about the future of its current leader, Adrien Fourmaux.
The Ford-backed outfit often makes its moves in the driver market at the end of the year and this season is no different as it still plans to field two full-time Ford Puma Rally1s next year.
The decision to reintegrate Fourmaux into the Rally1 program, after a year 2023 spent in Rally2, bore fruit as the Frenchman finished eight times in the top five, including four times on the podium (Sweden, Kenya, Poland and Finland). At this stage of the season, the Frenchman has only six points less than what 2019 world champion Ott Tänak, whom he replaced, had brought in in 2023.
Fourmaux’s impressive progression makes the 29-year-old Frenchman an interesting option. The 2023 British Rally Champion is also expected to join Hyundai and drive the Korean brand’s third car for next season.
Asked by Motorsport.com on his team’s plan for 2025, Richard Millener, director of M-Sport, says that “nothing has been signed with anyone” at present. “It’s totally up in the air and nothing is signed with anyone, all options are on the table, as usual for M-Sport at this stage of the year. We want the most competitive team strong possible for the two cars next year; this is the objective and what we continue to work on.”
Adrien Fourmaux could leave M-Sport by Hyundai.
Photo by: M-Sport
The team wants to conclude a new contract with Fourmaux and has not given up on keeping him despite the rumors. However, if she were to look elsewhere, she already seems to have a pretty clear shortlist to fill her two seats.
Grégoire Munster, his other full-time driver, produced arguably his best Rally1 performance to date in Chile, where he rose to fourth place, matching the best stage times, before finish in seventh place.
This performance, which comes after a very irregular campaign, could bode well for his future, even if Millener believes that the Luxembourger must still remain focused in view of the last two rallies of the season. “He has to concentrate on one rally at a time. He must not think about how to ensure he has a drive next year. He has to do his best in each rally and he Just wait and see what happens at the end of the year.”
Another driver M-Sport is keeping an eye on is Martins Sesks, following his three Rally1 appearances for the team. The 25-year-old Latvian climbed to fifth place in Poland, then onto the provisional podium in Latvia before experiencing a mechanical problem. Sesks, however, admitted after his last performance in Chile that he did not know what the future would hold.
“As he says himself, he doesn’t know what awaits him and I also don’t know what the future holds for him, there are a lot of things up in the air, but it was good to give him this opportunity and now we have to wait and see what happens in the coming weeks”Millener said.
Apart from these two drivers, the information of Motorsport.com hint that WRC2 title contenders Oliver Solberg and Yohan Rossel are on the team’s roster for 2025.
