M-Sport Ford has formally confirmed its three-car entry into the 2019 ౠWorld Rally Championship, while long-time boss Malcolm Wilson brings in Richard Millener as new team principal.

Following reigning WRC c꧅hampion Sebastien Ogier’s switch to Citroen for 2019, M-Sport has retained both Elfyn Evans and Teemu Suninen to become the squad’s two full-time drivers in the championship with the Ford Fiesta WRC car.

Both drivers with have new co-drivers for 2019 with Evans starting a fresh partnership with Scott Martin🔯 while Suninen joins up with fellow Finn Marko Salminen.

WRC2 star Pontus Tidemand has 🍸been named in th🌱e third M-Sport Ford for the opening two rounds, Rallye Monte-Carlo and Rally Sweden, with the remainder of the season to be confirmed at a later date.

Wi💃lson remains M-Sport boss as managing director but hands over team principal♉ duties to Millener to allow him to focus on the commercial side of the business in 2019.

The M-Sport chief concedes there have been mixed emotions following Ogier’s title triumph at Rally Australia last month before his departure from the team but is co✅nfident the F🍌ord-supported squad can maintain its fight into 2019.

“It has been a bit of a rollercoaster over the last few weeks – from the elation of winning ꦫthe FIA World Rally Championship for Drivers and Co-drivers with Sébastien and Julien to their emotional farewell – and we have been working night and day to put together the pieces that go into making a team for 2019,” Wilson said.

“As I speak we still don’t have 100 percent of the details in place, but👍 because of the huge amount of development work that has been going on behind the scenes; I felt that we had to make a commitment to see the hard work out on the stages. Working in collaboration with our partners in Europe and the US, every element has been reviewed and updated.

“Next🐬 year is going to be a very important year for M-Sport. We have a number of newꩵ projects coming up including the launch of our Evaluation Centre at Dovenby Hall. We will continue to spread the net and work with existing partners – safeguarding the roles we have and taking advantage of any new opportunities that arise. 

“We rely on the support of the whole WR🦩C community to piece together the mi🔯ssing pieces, but we are confident we have the tools to do a good job and so we are making the decision to push forward and work through the challenges as they arrive.”

The official M-Sport confirmation for 2019 comes on the final day for Rallye Monte-Carlo entries with the season opene༒r taking place between January 24-27.