After a year’s hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the FIA World Rally Championship returned to the world motorsport calendar, with Ifor Williams Trailers once again helping to provide the driving force behind one of the world’s leading motorsport teams.

After renewing our partnership in early 2020, Ifor Williams Trailers supplied two versatile Transporta trailers to Cumbria-based M-Sport, who have a string of international titles and rally wins to their name, including three FIA World Rally Championship Manufacturer’s titles.

M-Sport has prepared and run the official Ford World Rally Team cars in the World Rally Championship since 1996, and looks after Bentley Motorsport outfit in the Blancpain Endurance Series.

In their current Rally stable, M-Sport has Finn Teemu Suninen, Frenchman Adrien Fourmaux along with British new hope, Gus Greensmith. Both Greensmith and Suninen made a head-turning appearance on the Ifor Williams Trailers trade stand at Autosport International 2020, a four-day event at Birmingham NEC which is live-streamed across the globe.

Gus Greensmith, of Manchester, was a Manchester City youth goalkeeper before deciding to focus his talents fully on the motor circuit and, in 2014, he became British Junior Rally champion.

Speaking at the show, he said: “Rallying is a team sport so the bond between everyone involved is vital. That’s why I’m happy to take time to meet our partners at Ifor Williams Trailers. They provide an essential part of our logistics set-up.”

Dafydd Jones, Show Manager at Ifor Williams Trailers, said: “I am delighted that M-Sport have been so pleased with their Transportas which hopefully will help them on the road to even more success. The Transportas are proving extremely popular with a whole range of customers because of its versatility and reliability.”

“It was an honour to meet the drivers and chat to them. They really made us centre of attention. Lots of people stopped to take photos of them with the Transporta trailer.”

Our association with M-Sport began in 2018 when they were looking for trailers strong and reliable enough to travel thousands of miles a year along with its 25-strong test team as they prepare the way for the main rally contingents. The Ifor Williams Transporta trailers ticked every box!

The 2021 season has seen the two Transporta trailers cover over 65,000km to date, supporting the team in Croatia and Catalonia, all the way to the Russian boarder in Estonia.

Sadly, due to the pandemic, Wales Rally GB was not part of this year’s calendar, so the trailers could not make a brief return home as originally planned.

Following the conclusion of the 2021 season, M-Sport and their Transportas made the trip into the Arctic Circle in Lapland to complete their last development test for next year’s car – the Ford Puma Hybrid Rally1, replacing the famous Ford Fiesta WRC.

“The trailers have been faultless, we’ve had no problems at all,” said M-Sport’s test manager, John Godber.

“They offer everything we need including carrying capacity and shelter for the lads in horribly-cold -37C temperatures. When they’re not in use we put our catering facilities in there so the lads can eat inside and shelter from the elements.”

“Everything we do is outside. There are no garages out here and so everything we need is carried by the trailers and they are fabulous. They look fantastic – we can’t praise them enough for their size and the amount of equipment they can carry including the cars if we need them to as well as wheels, tyres and spares. They’re always fully-loaded.”

Throughout the year, M-Sport have kept us up to date with their season and periodically send photos of the trailers in all manner of locations and weather conditions, including their Lapland trip. We thought we’d share a few with you.

Croatia Rally, 22nd-25th April 2021 – Zagreb, Croatia

July 2021 – Testing in Estonia, a few hundred metres from the border with Russia

October 2021 – Catalonia, Spain

November 2021 – Testing the new car in the Arctic Circle, Lapland, Finland

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News » Driving force behind MSport