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The M-Sport Ford World Rally Team has unveiled a retro-inspired livery for its World Rally Championship-contending Ford Fiesta WRC at Autosport International.

M-Sport boss Malcolm Wilson said the livery, which in 2020 features a white and blue scheme instead of the predominantly blue and silver colours of last year, is inspired by the early '90s Ford World Rally Cars.

He cited the livery used during the 1993 season, when Francois Delecour narrowly missed out on the championship in a manufacturer-run Ford Escort RS Cosworth to four-time title winner Juha Kankkunen.

The livery also featured in 1994 when Delecour won the Monte Carlo Rally, though he suffered extensive injuries in a road accident while driving a friend's Ferrari F40 soon after.

That ruled him out for the rest of the season, and the only other success that year came when a young Tommi Makinen claimed his first WRC win in a one-off outing on his home rally in Finland.

Speaking on the Autosport stage at Autosport International, Wilson said: "the theme of it from our designer came from Francois Delecour's car, from [1993] when he nearly won the world championship, a lot of the base of the livery came from that car."

The 2020 livery also features more prominent sponsorship from Castrol.

Team principal Richard Millener added: "We wanted to try and look back a little bit at some of the liveries of the past, but at the same time try and have a bit of a modern feel to it and we have a very good designer internally who came up with it.

"It's a bit of a mix of everything.

"It's a fresh change, we've had quite similar colours for a couple of years so its something completely different, new team, new start and go from there."

Autosport International 2020

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M-Sport has already announced its 2020 driver line-up, with ex-Toyota and Citroen driver Esapekka Lappi signed to lead the charge alongside Teemu Suninen and a part-programme for Gus Greensmith.

Wilson believes an engine upgrade for the fourth round of the series should have the Fiesta challenging for victories again after a winless year in 2019.