By Paul Evans
Elfyn Evans will be looking to show the speed of the M-Sport Ford World Rally Team’s Fiesta WRC on gravel when the FIA World Rally Championship ventures to next week’s Rally Mexico.
The Dolgellau ace has twice finished fourth in Mexico, in 2014 and ’15, and wants to be in the fight for a top finish again this year.
He and co-driver Scott Martin proved their speed with three stage wins in Sweden, and they’ll be ones to watch when the three day event starts in Leon next Friday (8 March).
Rally Mexico is truly unique with high altitudes and temperatures to test both man and machine. The 30°C heat can be closer to 50°C in the cockpit. The crews must be in peak physical condition, and every technical component must also be able to withstand the punishing temperatures. If that weren’t enough, the stages climb more than 2,700 meters above sea level where the oxygen-starved air can see engine performance reduced by as much as 20%.
With that in mind, Evans has been testing the M-Sport Fiesta WRC in the hills north of Barcelona, while the car had a further two days at Ford’s state-of-the-art climatic chamber in Dunton – perfecting the engine maps to ensure optimum performance at high altitude and temperatures.
“I’ve always enjoyed Rally Mexico and have had some good results here in the past,” said Evans. “I’ve come close to the podium a couple of times, and the aim will be to challenge for the top results again next week. The whole team showed good speed in Sweden, and we want to continue that in Mexico.
“We’ll have a good road position on the first day that we’ll need to make the most of. But this rally isn’t without its challenges. It’s a notoriously demanding event with high temperatures and rough stages. So we’ll need to be fully focused to deliver the best results.
“We’ll also encounter the highest altitudes of the year, and the thinner air can see performance fall by as much as twenty percent. We’ll need to adapt our driving style to contend with that – being really smooth and not so aggressive behind the wheel – to ensure we’re getting one hundred percent of the available performance.”