M-Sport Ford World Rally Team will be back up to speed on the high-speed gravel stages of Rally Estonia this week (15-18 July).
Teemu Suninen returns to the British squad’s World Rally Car line-up alongside Gus Greensmith in two EcoBoost-powered Ford Fiesta WRCs. M-Sport’s WRC2 challenge resumes in Estonia with Adrien Fourmaux reverting to a Ford Fiesta Rally2 having excelled on Safari Rally Kenya in a top-level Fiesta, while Tom Kristensson makes his third appearance in WRC2 as part of his prize for winning the Junior WRC title in 2020.
After Greensmith and Fourmaux registered M-Sport’s best result of the season so far in East Africa last month, the focus switches from measured pace to driving flat out on Rally Estonia’s fast and popular gravel stages.
The event marks the start of part two of the 2021 season having made its WRC debut last September when it hosted the restart of the 2020 FIA World Rally Championship following the first wave of the global health pandemic.
Back then, and in line with the constraints at the time, organisers ran a compact three-day event but have reverted to a more traditional format for 2021. This includes a competitive distance of 319.38 kilometres over 24 mainly gravel stages from Thursday to Sunday.
The expanded route has resulted in a flurry of new stages being added to the itinerary or modifications being made to existing layouts. However, the fast-paced challenge remains unaltered with Rally Estonia rivalling Rally Finland as the WRC’s fastest contest.
Crews charge through spectacular open Estonian countryside – peppered with jumps and crests – and forest sections with thousands of fans getting ready to watch the action from the various vantage points along the route.
Compared to Rally Finland, Rally Estonia’s stages are softer in nature with ruts a potential challenge when stages are used for a second time. And with a mid-July date compared to the early autumn slot occupied in 2020, higher ambient and ground temperatures are expected.
Estonia’s second largest city Tartu, in the southeast of the country, remains Rally Estonia’s hub. Following Thursday’s opening city test, Friday’s action is based south of Tartu and includes four repeated stages. Crews head north of Tartu for Saturday morning’s two repeated runs before they travel south of the city for a brace of double-use stages in the afternoon. Three stages repeated are set for Sunday with the rally-deciding Power Stage due to begin at 14h18 local time.
To prepare for Rally Estonia, Greensmith and Suninen shared a three-day test earlier this month, while Fourmaux and Kristensson also got the opportunity to carry out pre-event running in the country.