Ford: Marcus' replacement will be announced in...

BP Ford team boss, Malcolm Wilson has confirmed that the M-Sport-run operation won't be in a position to announce who will replace the retiring Marcus Gronholm until late November - or even December.

Speaking during the official FIA press conference ahead of this weekend's Rally Japan, which gets underway on Friday, Wilson Sr added though that they will probably opt for a fixed second driver, rather than bringing in specialists for different events.

"The first thing, sadly, is there's no Marcus [Gronholm] or Sebastien [Loeb] in the sweet shop that you can pick off the shelf. We haven't made a decision yet though [on who will replace Marcus]," he noted.

"It's been successful, for the past few years, having two fixed drivers and that's what I'd like to do. We might opt for two rotational drivers, but at the moment we are trying to tie up the Championship.

"In late November or December time we will, hopefully, be in a position to announce what we're going to do."

Currently a number of drivers' are thought to be in consideration by Ford, including 'B' team member, Jari-Matti Latvala, as well as people like Francois Duval, Toni Gardemeister, Gigi Galli and even Petter Solberg, although the Norwegian does have a deal with Subaru for next year, something which would seemingly rule him out.