The Ford Focus WRC has romped home in dominant fashion to secure the 2006 World Rally Championship for manufacturers after a superb performance in New Zealand saw the team’s head driver, former drivers champ Marcus Gronholm, win in a faultless drive.

The Focus WRC is only in its debut season and the car was developed and built in record time by Malcolm Wilson and M-Sport.

Ford formed the alliance with Malcolm Wilson to build Ford’s WRC cars in 1997, when the Escort was the front-line Ford rally weapon.

Since then M-Sport built up what is regarded as one of the strongest teams in world rallying and the latest evolution of the Focus showed promise from the word go.

The car didn’t completely sweep the WRC calendar as the Citroen Xsara WRC driven by 2007 drivers champion Sebastian Loeb proved to be too consistent for Marcus Gronholm but solid results from the Ford team ensured that Ford collected the manufacturer’s trophy.

The Focus has been Ford’s works rally car since the Escort was retired back in 1998.

The Escort remains the most successful rally car in history and Ford’s involvement in rallying has done much to raise the company’s profile in Europe since the 1950’s when Maurice Gatsonsides, inventor of the speed camera, rallied the Zephyr model with great success in the 1950’s.

Ford enjoyed a limited amount of success with the Anglia and Cortina models but the turning point came in 1968 with the introduction of the Mk1 Escort which.

With its light body and nimble, rear-wheel-drive handling, it became a force to be reckoned with in loose surface events.

Despite this, Ford have only won the world rally title once before with the Mk2 RS1800 in 1979 although a semi-works RS1800 won the drivers title for Ari Vatenen in 1981.

By Brian Twomey