Henning Solberg will compete under the Stobart M-Sport Ford banner on the Rallye Monte Carlo, the opening round in the 2007 FIA World Rally Championship.
Henning signed a two-year deal with Ford last week however, it was not confirmed with which team he would represent. It now appears though that he will race alongside Jari-Matti Latvala and Matthew Wilson, at least at the 'Principality'.
Indeed while there had been speculation that Ford would have three 'manufacturer' teams in the WRC next year, only two will make an appearance in Monte Carlo, namely the BP Ford World Rally Team, which will field cars for Marcus Gronholm and Mikko Hirvonen and 'B' team drivers, Solberg, Latvala and Wilson, all racing under the Stobart name, although the 'VK' link appears to have been dropped.
Whether or not the 'third' team will make an appearance at a later date in '07 is not yet clear, although conceivably, with manufacturer teams only having to take in ten events, it does not need to compete until the Rally Italia-Sardinia in May, the seventh round in the championship. It is thought that the Ford 'C' team will be based around Luis-Perez Companc, at least, that was what was confirmed to
Crash.net Radio at the end of November.
"Obviously we have been running the Stobart VK team this year with Matthew and that will continue next year. We will also be introducing a second Manufacturer 2 team," said Ford/M-Sport boss Malcolm Wilson. "So on most events we will have six Focus WRC 06 cars and maybe on some events we will even have more. There is going to be a strong Ford presence in the WRC in 2007.
"The second M2 team will probably be linked with Luis-Perez Companc, who has been driving for us this year on certain events with the Stobart team. So, there is going to be a link there for sure."
Interestingly though, the entry list for the 75th Rallye Automobile Monte Carlo, has been released before the FIA's official entry list for the 2007 FIA World Rally Championship - assuming one will be published, which is usually the norm.
