Autosport International Show

18th January 2024

Rich Millener Interview – Autosport International 2024

Rich is the team principle of the M-Sport Ford World Rally Team and has been for around four years. I had the opportunity to speak to him on the second day of the Autosport Show when he and Adrien Fourmaux unveiled the Puma Rally1 with its 2024 livery.

I started by asking him about the new points system that has been introduced for this year and what he thought about it.

Rich

“I’m positive about it, because it gives a lot of opportunity, the sport needs to develop, and keep developing to be relevant. Last time we developed was when power stage points were introduced about five years ago if not more. We’re really done nothing since. I know this is a big change for the die-hard fans, but for me I think it’s an opportunity for a young driver team like us. We will probably have an advantageous road positions on some rallies, so for the first two days, we could have a great result could be top three, whatever, and we know when we get to Sunday, we’ve already bagged some points. Currently if you get to Saturday night, you’ve still got to push or be sensible. Now you can be sensible on Sunday knowing even if you have a bad Sunday, you’re still getting your points for Friday and Saturday. Also, more of a team involvement. Unfortunately, with rally at the moment the minute the car leaves the service the team does not do a lot. When people follow a sport, the characters they follow are not only the drivers, but the team as well, and yet maybe people know who I am, who Malcolm is and the drivers, they don’t know who the mechanics are, who the strategy people are, the engineers but you look at Formula One, Drive to Survive and the way Formula One do it, if you look at the social media accounts of the number one mechanics of various cars on the grid, they’ve all got huge followings, they’re all characters and they’re the kind of people that are followed by people who can get to their position. Not everyone can be a driver, but everyone can find a place in a team if they want to. I think the new points system, really the team it’s a massive thing and also changing up a bit developing, if you look at any other sport and think back to a few years ago it will be very different to where it is now. Because it changes and everyone is positive there’s no discussion you very quickly get used to it. Look at Formula One, how different it is in terms of qualifying, Q1, Q2 and Q3. Fastest lap time, fastest pitstop for the teams, they’re always doing something. Yes, it’s a big change, I get that, but might as well look at the positives.”

Warren

“Give me your thoughts on the lack of a WRC event in the British Isles, the lack of the rally in the United Kingdom? There’s a lot of fans that I’m connected to, Elfyn fans, you might remember the Elfyns Corner from a few years ago, who are really quite upset there’s no British round.”

Rich

“I think getting a Welsh round is probably in the short term not going to happen to be honest. However, I heard some very positive news out of Ireland a few days ago in the bid they put forward for a three-year programme in the WRC, 2025, ’26, ’27, in Southern Ireland, with rotating locations and is a very strong bid. I’m very hopeful that happens, and I think as British fans wanting the Welsh forests back of course we do. If we can’t have that, the next best thing is that. The atmosphere would be incredible, and the event would be fantastic, and this has come about from some fairly passionate rally people who we spoke to on a few rallies last year and floated the idea of a Northern Ireland event that didn’t manage to get going. It’s a different governing body. Motorsport UK have their own things to concentrate on, Ireland wants to concentrate on WRC, which is great for us, so really looking forward to that and if we can get that will become a massively popular event.”

Warren

“Have you spoke to Elfyn about this situation considering his success over recent years?”

Rich

“Yes, I still speak to Elfyn quite a bit, not necessarily in a lot of detail. I’m sure he’d love a rally in his hometown. I also think we have to take rallying to the people as well, tarmac rally, it shouldn’t be underestimated how many people you can reach, you know to go to the Welsh forests it’s quite an effort, there’s no decent roads to get there and even when you get there the roads get worse. It’s a fantastic experience, and environment, but to grow the sport we have to make it even more accessible”.

Warren

“Let’s have your thoughts for last season, two victories and a couple of podiums, fastest stage times as well for the drivers. Sum up your 2023 season, what do you see was good and bad.”

Rich

“There was a lot of pressure at the start of the year, and lot of expectation to win the championship. I think I was realistic from the start it would be difficult. We won as many rounds as Hyundai, so in that respect that we did pretty well. But it didn’t go as we hoped, but ultimately we were trying to win the championship with one driver, and then a young driver finding his feet as a junior driver, only two cars, didn’t have much opportunity to have strategy in that respect, so we had some difficult rallies, some reliability issues mid-year and Estonia was the real kicker and it becomes very difficult to keep the team motivated because you know that chance is gone. I think there were a lot of ups and downs last year, but certainly Sweden and Chile were highlights. It makes it even more special when you win, but I think looking forward to this year, the pressure has kind of changed, relieved a bit, we have good opportunities to upset people, Adrien is doing a full season, and we can take that opportunity to take some good results.”

Warren

“What’s the expectation for Adrien then from a management point of view?”

Rich

“Certainly, he’s got some points to prove, but it’s about tempering that enthusiasm and having that approach over the season, not just one round. We shall pick moments in rallies later in the year on ones we really want to push on. The first three are quite specialist, so the goal will be quite consistent throughout and then go from there.”

Warren

“I asked Rich about what happened with Ott and his co-driver Martin leaving the team and when he found out.”

Rich

“Relatively late in the season, we weren’t in a position to offer him another season. There were a lot of things to make it come together, and we were not able to do that at the time. Ott had an offer to go back to Hyundai, and he did not want to find himself without a seat. I fully appreciate that he came to us knowing fully the level we were at and what we could achieve. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out, and there’s no hard feelings or negativity towards his approach and what he wanted to do. We wish him all the best this year and he wants to win a world championship and he’s going somewhere where he feels that he can do that. He’s going to have a tough fight with teammates, but he’s certainly capable of winning.”

Warren

“Did Ott ultimately want to stay?”

Rich

“Maybe if we’d had a better middle season, he may have stayed but sometimes this is just the way it goes. We can’t always stay at that level we did the best we could that year and it unfortunately didn’t quite come off. We’ll try a different strategy this year and see what happens.”

Warren

“There’s some rumours from Autosprint (Italian motorsport publication) about changes with the cars for next year (2025).”

Rich

“It won’t happen next year.”

Warren

“What would that mean for M-Sport to go to a higher spec Rally2 type car?”

Rich

“Obviously I’ve read them all, it’s difficult to explain all the things that go into this kind of thing. From the outside it looks like a very easy decision to make, just go Rally2 and you’ll have lots of cars. Doesn’t mean that you’ll have any manufacturers, the sport won’t exist without manufacturers, and all of them have invested huge amounts of money in these cars (Rally1), that have a lifecycle of five years. To split it in two, you’ll upset quite a lot of people. Not saying we can’t make changes, but going back to Rally2 in one years’ time, well we don’t have any regulations, no time to develop the cars, I don’t see how you expect to do that in what is basically eleven months. It’s impossible. Not saying that there won’t be changes in 2026 or 2027, but to make big changes like that for 2025 is not realistic. Due diligence must be done, we need to get the resource and understanding for current OEM’s and future OEM’s. If your guaranteed you’re going to bring two more manufacturers in with these changes, that’s a different situation. If it just means that we stay at three or maybe even, go down if one didn’t want to do that it would make it worse. We’ve got to be fast, do all the research quickly to know which direction we’re going, but I think 2025 is maybe too early.”

Warren

“Of course, need to talk about Craig, your 2022 driver. It was a big shock for the sport. How did the team react at the time to all of that?”

Rich

“It was a big shock to everyone, I’m sure that everyone remembers where they were when they heard the news. It’s something no-one expected that would happen and still something you don’t necessarily believe or think, we still expect to get a WhatsApp from Craig at some point like it always used to be, but that’s never going to be the case. I think it was a very unfortunate set of circumstances, it just goes to show how cruel and hard the sport can be at times. All I can do is look back on good memories with Craig, I’ve known him for a very long time when he first came to M-Sport to drive the Fiesta ST when I first met him. I’ve known him effectively from the start of his rally career and we were good friends, we had a hard time in 2022 when things didn’t go as planned or hoped for him. I think it’s so sad, he was just finding his feet again at Hyundai, he would have been challenging for the championship again and we’ll never get to see that. For me it’s all about the good memories, and it’s a lot for the team, he was a proper rally fan, just one of the lads and a great guy to work with, but it’s really sad for everyone around him but I’ll always remember him for the positives.

Warren

“Thinking about the safety in pre-event tests, have there been any changes that you’ve made during tests, looking at the roads you’re using?”

Rich

“If you tried to take away everything dangerous in a stage, you wouldn’t have a stage. The FIA have done a lot of research into what happened, and there is a huge manual for test organisers, but unfortunately a certain set of circumstances comes around that you cannot plan for and all we have to do is keep constantly developing and doing the best we can to make it as safe. These cars are incredibly safe. I think all the stakeholders are doing the best that they can to make sure we’re as safe as possible.

Warren

“Finally, what led to picking your drivers for this season and when did they sign?”

Rich

“The plan was for Adrien was always to come back to Rally1, after a difficult 2022. We gave him an opportunity to show what he can do, he became a completely different driver last year and winning the British championship really helped as well, so it was a natural decision to put him into the car. Mid-season we were discussing this idea. Gregoire was a bit of a later decision, we were speaking with a lot of different drivers, and a lot of different options but we were looking for the best package for the team going forward, but it was clear from the beginning was to develop young drivers. Gregoire fitted very well into this set of criteria. We don’t expect results from the start, but we just want to see progression over the course of the year. As I said earlier, Adrien can pick and choose from events to try and score on. Gregoire is more of a case of slowing going forward and seeing what’s possible. No real pressure on the guys, just go out there and show what they can do.

Finally, a big thank you to Rich for his time and also to Emily for assisting me.

29th March 2020

Autosport International Show Gallery 2020

At this years Autosport International Show, there were some pretty iconic cars on display, from all parts of the motorsport world.

The main feature included Seventy Years of Motorsport, and there were some incredibly beautiful cars on display from Le Mans, World Rally Championship, Indycar, British Touring Car Championship, Formula One and Formula E.

All were game changers in their own way.

The decades of the 1950’s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, ’00s, ’10s are all represented.

Away from there, there were other amazing displays. The Le Mans Toyota TS050 from 2018, the car that finally gave Toyota the victory that it has craved for decades, with Sébastien Buemi, Fernando Alonso and Kazuki Nakajima sharing the driving duties.

Toyota has kept the tradition of not cleaning the winning car.

There was a display of Formula One cars as well.

Below is a group of classic rally cars – Some iconic machinery here, from the seventies, eighties, nineties and two-thousands. Three cars driven by Colin McRae featured as well.

Well, we hope that you have enjoyed this look back to this year’s Autosport International Show, while we wait for the racing season to re-start.

All photos courtesy of Warren Nel

14th February 202015th February 2020

Interview with Chris Ingram, 2019 European Rally Champion.

At Autosport International Show last month, I sat down with Chris Ingram, the first British winner of the European Rally Championship for over fifty years.

This is what the rising British star had to say.

Warren

Describe your journey in rallying so far. How did that even start?

Chris

My dad was passionate rally driver in the eighties, he did road rallies and when he made a bit of money with his business in the early 2000’s he got back into it and rallied in the UK national championships, performing in world rally cars. He took me to watch a rally in Yorkshire and I just fell in love with the sport as a ten-year-old kid. It was my life from then. All day at school, I was drawing pictures of rally cars, and getting told off. Every single story I had to write was about rallying, Colin McRae or whatever.

That’s how it started, and then as I got into my teenage years I really wanted to get behind the wheel, and to be honest, I didn’t have any expectations of doing anything, I just loved the sport. It wasn’t like I was a spoilt kid, but my dad helped me start in the Junior 1000 championship in 1.0 litre cars for drivers between the age of 14 and 17. I had a Citroen C1. We pretty much built that ourselves in our shed. It was basically a road car with a rollcage. We did that championship and ran the car ourselves and won it, and then entered the British Championship. Unfortunately, my dad had some tough times in his business, so I had to go on my own and find sponsors but that all worked out by the skin of its teeth. It was 2012 was when I started, when I was seventeen. When I was nineteen, I got the chance with Renault Sport to drive in the European Rally Championship, with some great backing from them to drive a Twingo R2, which is the first year of the ERC Junior Championship, I crashed the car on the circuit of Ireland, but I was lying eight overall, plus tenth overall against R5 cars, I got awarded the Colin McRae Trophy. That was the first time that I’d shown proper top-class pace.

Warren

Who was sitting alongside you?

Chris

Gabin Moreau, a French Co-Driver sat alongside, but early on, Michael Gilbey, who still rallying now. I changed my co-driver quite a lot in the early days. Like I said, when I won the Colin McRae Award, the doors opened up to Peugeot and I got a fully funded drive with them for two years in the same class, RT two-wheel drive, and that led to a fully funded drive with Opel Motorsport which was a massive opportunity, a proper German team. Working with those guys, both my speed a professionalism came on a lot, both inside and outside the car because I had to deliver for them, or it was game over, and then I won the Junior Championship with them in 2017, and that was when I was put back on my own. I had to move to R5, but there were no works drives, for someone my age, with no experience – No experience with R5 or WRC events, but I was very lucky to find a great team called Tok Sport who were based in the Nurburgring and they were really good and invested a lot in me, really believed in me.

They’d seen me in Rally GB when I competed in the Adam R2. In the dark and fog I was in the top five in WRC2 against twenty R5 cars, we were beating half of them at the end of Saturday. Set a couple of mad stage times, which caught their attention and they helped me compete in R5 to this day and same again in 2019 but I lost my main sponsor a week before the first rally but they believed in me that much, they helped as much as they can, rally by rally I had to find as much sponsorship as I could and made it through with crowdfunding on the last event where we raised £20,000 from rally fans who were all chipping in, which was unbelievable, and then to win the title on the very last stage of the last round to pay them all back was just the sweetest moment.

Warren

What was the points gap at the end?

Chris

It was nine points, but basically it was head to head with Alexey Lukyanuk the reigning champion going into the last rally. He had to win and me finish less than third. I was comfortably in second, he was leading, I got a puncture and dropped to third. I thought that’s okay, I’ve a minute and thirty second gap behind. We come to the last stage, it’s horrific weather is dark, there’s fog, it’s muddy, half the stages are on gravel with slicks, and a twenty-seven long stage to finish the rally, and I got a puncture halfway through and I thought, do I change this puncture, as it’s going to cost me at least a minute thirty to change because it’s dark and raining.

I don’t think I could have ever changed it in a minute and thirty if it was the best tyre change of my life, so I decided to carry on through to the end and we lost between and minute thirty and forty, but we’d actually stayed ahead of whoever was in fourth, a driver called Callum Devine was fifth and he’d had an amazing run and taken two minutes out of me, and he jumped onto the podium and I dropped to fourth. I realised this at the end of the stage, Chris Ross BRC radio saying you’ve lost the championship. I didn’t wait and we drove about 100 metres down the road to change the puncture and then a photographer came running down the road because Alexey Lukyanuk was running behind me as it was reverse order on the last stage of the rally and the photographer said Alexey Lukyanuk has had a puncture too and he’d dropped to second meaning that we’d won the title, so if he’d not got the puncture, he would have won the title by a point, but had a puncture and handed us the title. Plus, if we’d not got a puncture then we’d have won the rally, so it was just mad. A mental finish.

Warren

What was your favourite event from the championship?

Chris

Hungary was a horrible rally, in terms of tricky conditions, dangerous stages, but that’s one round I’ll never forget, so obviously that’s the highlight, but my favourite is the Azores, which is the most spectacular rally in the world. One of the stages runs along the volcano ridge, which means one side is a 500 metre drop into a lake and the other side is a 500 metre drop into the sea, it’s just spectacular. Just the most incredible in my opinion. That’s probably the best one.

Warren

What do you do to relax? Do you relax?

Chris

It’s hard. I find it hard to relax, because as soon as I won the championship, now I’ve got to find money for next year. So, I had a bit of time with my girlfriend over Christmas to try and chill out, but it’s very hard to, because this is everything to me. It’s not just my passion and dream that I’ll never give up on, if I wasn’t a rally driver, I’d have to reinvent myself and do something else as a job, so it’s everything.

Warren

In your mind, that’s harder, as you’ve got through these last ten years.

Chris

Yes, exactly and we’ve got so far that we’ve got to keep going now. I need to find the backing and support from British fans, that’s what we need to do now.

Warren

That’s one of the reasons that I wanted to talk to you, as feel that you’re a bit under the radar, and I’d become aware of you over the years.

Okay, if you could drive a world rally car from the past, right the way back to the early days in the championship, all those exotic cars in the Group ‘B’ and Group ‘A’ era, right up to the current types of car, which one would you pick?

Long pause from Chris as he pondered this question….

Warren

There’s some great cars and I think I’d struggle to answer this.

Chris

There are obviously the classic and legendary cars like the Quattro. I’ve been lucky enough to drive the 205 T16 Group ‘B’ car, which was an unbelievable experience.

Kevin Furbers’ 205 T16 at Race Retro 2015, Photo credit, Kevin Jones Peugeot UK

Warren

Where did you drive that, and describe the experience?

Chris

At Race Retro three or four years ago. It was completely raw, you could feel everything that car was doing, and it was an absolute animal and you had to manhandle it, to get it round this tight stage that they’d set up, just the hardest work. I’m lucky that I get to work with Tuthill Porsche and with the old 911’s in Sweden. They own these classic legendary rally cars and they offer this completely unique experience, whereas probably most R5 cars are pretty similar to drive to be honest. But I’d still you know, like to drive a modern WRC machine like the Yaris, if I was to choose, I’d go with the latest spec car to be honest. If it had to be retro, maybe the Quattro, because it’s just so iconic, isn’t it, and I’ve driven the 205 anyway.

I drove Russell Brookes’ old Opel Manta, which is an honour, because he’s an absolute legend. That was an amazing opportunity as well. Much easier to drive the 205, but still harder than today’s cars. The difference is that back then, it was much more about car control, now you have to be more relaxed, you can’t drive these cars aggressively. You have to know the car and let the car do the work, and as long as you’re good at carrying speed, it’s all about technique. Turn in once, braking once, minimal inputs that’s the only way to drive, and very smooth.

Warren

Going from the Opel Adam, front wheel-drive and moving to something that’s got four-wheel drive like the Skoda, just explain how you adapted your style?

Chris

To be honest, the first time that I drove the R5 car it was easy, jumping out of the two-wheel drive which you had to wring its neck, when I got into the Skoda R5, I was like a PlayStation, it was unbelievably easy, which is crazy, isn’t it? This year I started to get too stressed because of all the pressure, and because of all of that and anxiety, not knowing if I was going to be able to carry on, I didn’t realise it at the time, but I brought that into my driving and I was tense and it started to become hard work again, physically difficult to feel the car because of all those things, I just wasn’t relaxed. The last few rallies, I got it back, and able to relax and it just flows so much easier when you’re relaxed, it’s mad how it works.

Warren

What are your hopes for this season?

Chris

To compete in a full season of WRC2, to find the funding and the target is always to win. There would be a lot of learning in the first year of WRC. I’d be competing against guys who’d done it several times, but we’d be doing everything to win, because if we can win the ERC and WRC back to back, which no-one’s ever done, then we can’t be ignored by the top teams. That’s the goal. The top teams are Toyota and Hyundai, and then M-Sport, they’ve probably got one works driver and then the other drivers are paying for their seats, so realistically Hyundai and Toyota. It’s a small market, but we need to give it everything.

Warren

What’s your thoughts on Seb Loeb still competing?

Chris

He’s a legend, and I can understand it from a manufacturer point of view, and there’s some other drivers which, they’ve had their chance dozens of times and they’ve not won, so hopefully more young talent will get a chance, and just because they’ve got big backing behind them, just raw talent. Streaming could be a good opportunity for me, if they’re keen to get young talent on board, not just names from the past. That’s the battle I’m having constantly, competing against guys that have been involved for so long, everyone knows who they are, so it’s very difficult, very hard.

Well, a big thank you to Chris for his time. One of many things that came across was his passion and drive to make it to the top of his chosen sport. I for one hope that he gets his opportunity and soon. It would be a crying shame if it did not happen.

Give him a follow and check out his website.

https://www.chrisingramrally.com/