ARX

Loenbro Motorsports has announced that it will revert to the M-Sport Ford Fiesta platform for the 2019 Americas Rallycross season after a year running the Ford Focus RS RX.

The team switched to the ex-World Rallycross Focus in 2018 after three successful seasons with the Fiesta, which yielded four wins and title challenges in 2016 and 2017. Now the Focus will be parked in favour of the Fiesta, which is being upgraded ahead of the new season.

“As 2019 begins to take shape I am excited to announce that we are switching back to our Fiesta ST chassis,” said Loenbro Motorsports team boss and driver Steve Arpin in an announcement. “The entire team has been hard at work over the past few months stripping the cars down to bare metal, prepping and upgrading them with some really cool parts so that we can push to win the 2019 championship.”

Loenbro Motorsports was among M-Sport’s first rallycross customers – along with Bryan Herta Rallysport – when it purchased two cars from the Cumbrian firm in early 2015. Arpin drove one of the team’s Fiestas in Global Rallycross between 2015-17, with Brian Deegan and Jeff Ward splitting the second car in 2015 and 2016.

All of Arpin’s rallycross wins to-date have come in the Fiesta. His first triumph came at Daytona in 2016, with further wins also coming in Thompson, CT, and Ottawa, Canada the following season. Arpin mounted a strong challenge for the 2017 GRC title in ’17 with the car, finishing third in the points behind the dominant Volkswagen pairing of Scott Speed and Tanner Foust.

Deegan also used the car to great effect, taking his second rallycross win in what has so far been his last rallycross outing back in 2016. He too made a strong case for a championship that year.

The switch to the Focus in 2018 proved to be less fruitful. While the car was a two-time race winner in World RX, it failed to reach the top step of the podium in ARX. It did however get second and a third place finishes in the hands of Ken Block at Circuit of the Americas in Austin and Trois-Rivières in Canada respectively; while Arpin finished on the podium at the second visit to COTA.