From Le Mans to Monaco, Daytona to Bathurst, Finke to Ensenada, Ford Performance has raced and won everywhere. But he has yet to tackle one of the toughest races on the planet: the iconic Dakar Rally.
The first step of the multi-year commitment to the Dakar Rally will be the “finish and learn” approach, i.e. gaining experience from completing a race to the end by learning its secrets, in collaboration with long-standing partners M-Sport and Neil Woolridge Motorsport (NWM) for vehicle development, service and event management.
“It has always been a goal of ours to lead one of the world‘s premier off-road events, the Dakar Rally,” said Mark Rushbrook, global director, Ford Performance Motorsports. “We cannot underestimate the extraordinary nature of the challenge ahead of us. With the Ranger T1+ and with partners of the caliber of M-Sport and NWM, who provide all their experience, we can do incredible things in the sand dunes of the Arabian Peninsula.
Our first time in the Dakar will be an important test that will help us understand how to tackle the race in the future as well,” said Rushbrook. “And as with all races, we race not only to win, but to help build better products to offer to our customers.”
Leading the charge at Rally Dakar 2024, which takes place from 5 to 19 January in Saudi Arabia, will be a high-performance Ford Ranger, specially built for this competition, which will compete in the Rally Raid T1+ category.
The joint Ford Performance, M-Sport and NWM team has already completed several development phases and is currently continuing testing with the Ranger T1+, equipped with the 3.5-litre EcoBoost engine. Test races include the Baja España Aragón in Spain and the Rally du Maroc in Morocco in July and October respectively, before the debut at the 2024 Dakar Rally.
Ford Performance and M-Sport are developing an all-new Ranger Raptor purpose-built for the 2025 Dakar Rally: it’s the highest-performance version of Europe’s best-selling pickup – designed and built to Dakar T1+ category rules. The team behind the development and operation of the Ford Puma HybridRally1 in the FIA World Rally Championship, M-Sport, also features as an engine builder in the Mustang GT3 programme. From the early stages of development of the Rally-Raid Ranger, NWM has played a vital role in the process, as the team has developed and built at its factory in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal, purpose built models and to compete regularly in the Dakar T1+ in the South African Rally-Raid Championship (SARRC) and all other world competitions.