MING Racing Sports activities has upgraded their Ford F-150 EVO to T1+ specs, with which they intend to run choose cross-country rallies in Europe and hopefully the Center East earlier than ultimately bringing it to the 2025 Dakar Rally. The T1+ was revealed on Sunday with František Brutovský and Petr Hauptmann as driver and navigator, respectively.
Though it’s a Ford, it takes some inspiration from the Audi RS Q e-tron that received the Dakar in January with Carlos Sainz. In an interview with Foto-Moto, Brutovský admitted that whereas he dislikes electrical automobiles, the Audi has a “good design”. That is mirrored within the Ford’s rear, which has a curved rear cab comparable to what’s seen on the Audi sitting atop the truck mattress. It makes use of a Ford 5.8-litre engine and goes as much as 395 horsepower with over 600 newton-metres of torque.
The gear setup has been modified because of the bigger wheels; T1+ automobiles are required to have 37-inch (93.98 cm) wheels, in comparison with 32 inches (81.28) on a T1.1 mannequin. The subcategory additionally has larger requirements in suspension journey at 350 millimetres versus 280 mm and a bigger tread width at 320 mm over 245 mm. Naturally, these laws make T1+ automobiles the perfect in rally raid in the present day as they dominate the World Rally-Raid Championship and varied home collection to the purpose the place some nationwide collection just like the Spanish Cross-Nation Rally Championship have break up it off from T1 right into a separate class.
To give attention to growing the automobile, MING Racing opted to skip the Hungarian Cross-Nation Rally Championship’s season-opening Desert Specific 300 over the weekend. The automobile is predicted to make its competitors début on the Baja Drawsko Pomorskie in Poland in April. After conducting follow-up checks in Tunisia, the workforce will ramp up their racing schedule over the summer time with the Baja España Aragón in Spain in July adopted by the Baja Poland and Hungarian Baja in August. If these work out, they are going to then head to the Center East for the Dubai Worldwide Baja and Qatar Worldwide Baja in November. Aragón, Poland, Qatar, and Dubai are rounds on the FIA World Baja Cup whereas the Hungarian Baja is a part of the European Baja Cup.
Nevertheless, Brutovský famous the workforce will probably additionally enter extra races in Poland and their native Czech Republic to additional present the Ford with racing expertise. Finally, it will culminate in his and the workforce’s maiden Dakar Rally in 2025.
“We’re making ready this automobile for the Dakar,” Brutovský instructed Foto-Moto. “Though I initially thought I might drive it with a turbo automobile, I don’t see it that means anymore, so we’ll go together with this one. I hope every little thing goes in line with my expectations, so on the finish of the yr, will probably be Qatar then Dubai and eventually Dakar.”
MING’s automobile shouldn’t be the one Ford T1+ as M-Sport and Neil Woolridge Motorsport oversee the Ford Ranger T1+ venture. Karel Trneny, a fellow Czech driver, raced a Ford F-150 EVO T1+ on the 2024 Dakar Rally and completed twenty-third within the Final class.
Different T1+ automobiles embody three variations of the Toyota Hilux—the GR DKR Hilux from twice reigning World Rally-Raid Champion Toyota Gazoo Racing, the Hilux Overdrive from Overdrive Racing, and a privateer-friendly mannequin from WCT Engineering; the Mini John Cooper Works Rally Plus of X-raid Staff; the Prodrive Hunter and its deliberate successor Dacia Sandrider; and the Crimson-Lined REVO and HW2024.
