Great news for Australia’s Chris Atkinson, with word via Speedcafe confirming he will be joining Ken Block‘s Monster World Rally Team at next month’s Rally Mexico. At this stage it’ll be a one-off drive for Chris and we’re reminded there were hopes of a Block-Atkinson two-car team back in 2009.
Atkinson’s car, a Ford Fiesta RS WRC, will be prepped by Ford’s M-Sport. He can be assured it be competitive, too, as it will be a like for like example of the car Jari-Matti Latvala just drove to victory at Rally Sweden.
M-Sport have been able to provide Atkinson with around 400km of testing over the last few days and the 32-year-old says this will be invaluable preparation for his first WRC event since 2009. “Without this, I would have struggled on the first few stages to get up to speed with everything, but now I will head to Mexico with a lot more confidence,” he said.
“I’m really appreciative of this testing opportunity and I can’t thank Malcolm [Wilson] and the M-Sport team enough. The car was amazing and I can’t wait to drive it under competitive conditions.”
[Source: Speedcafe | Pic: Monster World Rally Team]
6 replies on “Chris Atkinson back in the WRC”
Well this is fantastic news! I remember when the news came out for 2009 when Chris was expecting a drive.
Great to see him back in a seat, for the next world rally at least. Now we just need an international telecasting agreement to be made so we can watch it locally again.
Adz.
Shares in Mexican panelbeating businesses just went up!
those cars won’t crash them selves
Who needs cars that can crash themselves? They have Chris Atkinson and Ken Block to handle that side of things!
I suppose that having an Aktinson and/or Block special in the end of year crash compilation would get them more exposure than a well-controlled 11th place behind a couple of S2000 cars.
Wow… she was lucky.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQEYYz5iS7I
Was wasn’t there more caging?
[…] weekend Chris Atkinson enjoyed his first WRC start for a couple of years when he took part in Rally Mexico as part of Ken Block’s Monster World Rally […]