This is Sébastien Ogier's new M-Sport livery - Red Bull
Check out the colours that the four-time champion’s M-Sport Ford Fiesta WRC will wear in 2017.
By Greg Stuart
It's official, four-time World Rally champ Sébastien Ogier will begin his first season as an M-Sport driver in the colours you see in the video above.
The short film shows M-Sport boss Malcolm Wilson strolling through the team's factory. He passes previous M-Sport machinery, including Colin McRae's 1999 Ford Focus and Mikko Hirvonen's 2011 Ford Fiesta, before pulling back the covers on Ogier's 2017-spec, Red Bull-liveried M-Sport Ford Fiesta WRC.
As he says in the video, Wilson got the best Christmas present he could have hoped for when he agreed terms with Ogier for the 2017 season in mid-December, following the Frenchman's Volkswagen team withdrawing from the WRC.
Ogier will partner Estonian driver Ott Tänak – whose car will wear a different, geometric-inspired livery – as M-Sport seek to take the fight to rivals Hyundai, Citroën and the returning Toyota team in 2017.
"We're immensely proud of the Ford Fiesta WRC, and these eye-catching new liveries will add the finishing touch," said Wilson of the new designs. "We can't wait to see both cars attack the stages of Rallye Monte-Carlo in their finalised designs. Until then, all that remains is to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and all the best for what looks set to be an exciting New Year."
Not only will Ogier have a new car to contend with next season, he'll also have around 70 horsepower more under his right foot than he had in 2016, with World Rally cars' power figures jumping up from 315bhp to around 380bhp.
Coupled with more extreme aerodynamics, which have seen the 2017 cars sprout bigger wings and wider bodywork, next year's World Rally Championship should be more exciting than ever.
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