Ford Mondeo - Motorsport

Motorsport

The Mondeo competed in the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) between 1993 and 2000. The cars, prepared by former series champion Andy Rouse, did not enter the 1993 season until the 8th round at Pembrey in Wales. Rouse and Paul Radisich were the drivers in the Mondeo's first season. Radisich went on to win the FIA World Touring Car Cup in both 1993 and 1994 driving a Mondeo.

Ford ran a factory-sponsored team, called Ford Team Mondeo, for eight seasons. As mentioned above, Andy Rouse Engineering ran the cars from 1993 to 1995, at which point West Surrey Racing ran the works team from 1996 to 1998, with Prodrive taking over beginning 1999. In 2000, the team expanded from two cars to three when drivers Alain Menu and Anthony Reid were joined by 1998 series champion Rickard Rydell, recruited from the disbanded Volvo team. The team dominated the 2000 season, finishing 1-2-3 (Menu-Reid-Rydell) in the drivers' standings and winning the manufacturers' championship by a staggering 104 points.

A complete overhaul of the BTCC following the 2000 season saw the supertouring regulations scrapped as the series moved towards lighter and less expensive race cars based on compact car chassis and not family saloons. Ford withdrew from BTCC competition prior to 2001.

The Touring Cars after their withdrawal went on sale to the public and are now in the hands of other drivers. Two of the 2000 series Mondeos have been spotted in the BRSCC series of LMA Euro saloons; drivers known to own them at present are Bernard Hogarth and Alvin Powell.

The Mk I & Mk II Mondeo have followed many other previous Ford models into the world of banger racing in the UK, and with many plenty of older cars being available for very little money, the Mondeo is now a popular and relatively easy car to race. The Zetec engines are converted to run off a carb set up and the Mondeo bodyshell is fairly tough, but they are proving rather rigid, with many drivers getting injured in high speed impacts. Mondeos are proving more popular than the Sierra and Mk III Granada.

In Argentina, the Mondeo's design was employing for the manufacturing handcrafted racing cars in reforzed fiberglass, for the racing category Top Race. This model, is the most successful in the category, with 2 championships in the TRV6 and 1 championship in the TR Junior. The racedriver champions in the TRV6, was Omar Martínez (2009) and José María López (2009) with the Mondeo Mk II, and the racedirver champion in the TR Junior, was Gonzalo Perlo in 2008. In 2009, was presented the Mondeo Mk III as a bodywork option, but the Mk II is still used.

Similarly, in the United States, the Fusion/Mondeo Mk.5 bodywork will be used in the Car of Tomorrow second-generation body used in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series starting in 2013, replacing the current Mazda6-based Fusion.

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