M-Sport names new chief designer

M-Sport appoints Simon Carrier as new chief designer

M-Sport, the British-based team which runs Ford's programme in the FIA World Rally Championship, has named Simon Carrier as its new chief designer. Carrier, who has worked at M-Sport since 2002, will play a prominent role in the design of the new Focus RS World Rally Car which will carry the Blue Oval's championship challenge from next season onwards.

Forty-one-year-old Carrier's professional motorsport career began at Lola Cars where he was involved in the aerodynamic development of the Nissan Group C sports car, which took pole position at Le Mans in 1990. In 1992, he joined Team Lotus to participate in the Formula 1 team's wind tunnel research. Three years later he was recruited to work on the design of Ford's new Mondeo Super Touring Car in Bavaria.

He then joined British team Prodrive, being involved in such diverse projects as styling/aero investigation for a luxury car manufacturer and chassis development for off-road vehicles. He was also heavily involved in Ford's touring car programme, designing the body structure of the Mondeo which won the British championship in 2000.

While still at Prodrive, Carrier played a leading role in designing the 2000 season Subaru Impreza for the World Rally Championship. But Ford's motorsport programmes have proved to be a recurring link throughout his career and he joined M-Sport as senior designer in 2002, working on the radical and successful Focus RS World Rally Car, which formed the basis of the BP-Ford World Rally Team's current car.

Carrier will continue to work under the direction of M-Sport's technical director, Christian Loriaux. "Simon has an impressive career record in motorsport and was a key member of the successful team behind the 2003 Ford Focus RS World Rally Car," said Loriaux. "We are now moving into a new era with the design of the 2006 Focus RS, based on the new generation Focus road car, and I'm confident he is the right person to lead our team forward in the design of what is likely to be Ford's most important rally car ever."

Carrier said: "Ford's motorsport programmes have been a fairly constant theme throughout my career. We are entering a massively exciting time at M-Sport with the design of the new Focus RS WRC and I'm proud to lead the design team into this project. We have much to live up to after the first generation Focus RS, but I'm confident that we have the ability and the expertise within the team to produce a car that can take Ford to the world title."

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