Overnight repair saves M-Sport Monte Carlo WRC test
M-Sport will continue its Monte Carlo World Rally Championship pre-event test after completing an overnight repair on its Ford Puma damaged in a crash involving Craig Breen.
The Ford squad was forced to curtail its running in France on Wednesday after Breen and co-driver Paul Nagle clipped a bridge, sending the Puma into a spin before rolling down a 15 metre drop-off the side of the asphalt road, with the car coming to rest on its roof.
Luckily, Breen and Nagle escaped the incident unscathed but the crash halted the test and initially threatened to derail the remaining days of the team's test.
After being able to retrieve the car through the use of a crane, the M-Sport team set to work on repairing the Puma working through the night before completing the job at 4am this morning.
Gus Greensmith has now jumped aboard the car for today's running while nine-time champion Sebastien Loeb is expecting to test ahead of his M-Sport debut at Monte Carlo once he returns from competing in the Dakar Rally.
Speaking after the crash on Instagram, which was Breen's first for 13 years in testing, the Irishman declared the damage to the Puma as "relatively speaking not so bad" following the accident.
"The team has done a fantastic job to ensure that Gus can be out testing in the Puma today," M-Sport team principal Richard Millener told Motorsport.com.
"After we received the news yesterday and saw the pictures, I had an idea that there was a chance we could fix it, but until you get it back into the workshop you just don't know.
"But, we have a really good team who are prepared to work all hours of the day to get the job done, and that is exactly what they did.
"I know that Gus will really appreciate what we managed and I have received numerous messages from all over congratulating us on what they did last night.
"I would like to give a personal thank you to everyone involved who are ensuring that our build up plans for next week's event are still on track."
M-Sport is set to officially unveil its 2022 challenger in its full livery on Saturday at the WRC official launch in Austria, which will be live-streamed through Motorsport.com.
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