With its large naturally aspirated V8 from the Ford Mustang, the Ford Raptor is the most sonorous and melodious 4×4 of this 2024 Morocco Rally. But it is clearly not the most reliable. Indeed, the M-Sport operations team preferred not to launch Carlos Sainz’s car into the desert this Tuesday, October 8 due to abnormal data when warming up the vehicle.
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“Unfortunately, this morning I started the car and we noticed a problem with the dataCarlos Sainz explained. The team decided to check all the numbers properly and not take the risk of going out with the car and breaking something at this stage of the Rally or our preparation. That would not have been the right thing to do. We decided to give up for today. »
A hard blow for “El Matador”, who had distinguished himself by taking 3rd place in the 1st stage the day before. The British team is looking to get the Ford back on track for the rest of the event, without any ambition in the general classification. In any case, this does not change anything, because Ford having approved its Raptor in FIA 2025 version, the blue 4x4s are in the Experimental category and do not get involved in the fight for the general classification concerning the Toyota, Dacia and other Minis.
“Hopefully I can continue and get some mileage in the Ford. Yesterday was positive, even if we still have some small problems. We’re pretty happy overall. »
