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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 won the Dakar in January with Carlos Sainz. In an interview with Foto-Moto, Brutovský admitted that whereas he dislikes electrical autos, the Audi has a “good design”. That is mirrored within the Ford’s rear, which has a curved rear cab related 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 as a result of 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+ autos one of the best in rally raid immediately as they dominate the World Rally-Raid Championship and numerous home sequence to the purpose the place some nationwide sequence just like the Spanish Cross-Nation Rally Championship have split it off from T1 into a separate class.
To concentrate on creating the automotive, MING Racing opted to skip the Hungarian Cross-Nation Rally Championship’s season-opening Desert Categorical 300 over the weekend. The automotive is anticipated to make its competitors début on the Baja Drawsko Pomorskie in Poland in April. After conducting follow-up exams in Tunisia, the group 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’ll 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 group will seemingly additionally enter extra races in Poland and their native Czech Republic to additional present the Ford with racing expertise. Ultimately, it will culminate in his and the group’s maiden Dakar Rally in 2025.
“We’re making ready this automotive for the Dakar,” Brutovský advised Foto-Moto. “Though I initially thought I might drive it with a turbo automotive, I don’t see it that method anymore, so we’ll go along with this one. I hope the whole lot goes in accordance with my expectations, so on the finish of the yr, it will likely be Qatar then Dubai and eventually Dakar.”
MING’s automobile isn’t the one Ford T1+ as M-Sport and Neil Woolridge Motorsport oversee the Ford Ranger T1+ project. 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 embrace 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 model from WCT Engineering; the Mini John Cooper Works Rally Plus of X-raid Crew; the Prodrive Hunter and its deliberate successor Dacia Sandrider; and the Red-Lined REVO and HW2024.
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