What M-Sport is looking for from Sesks’ WRC “extended audition”

M-Sport is treating Martins Sesks’ Rally Chile outing as an “extended audition” in the World Rally Championship as the Ford team continues to assess the young driver’s skills for the future.

Rising star Sesks and co-driver Renars Francis have earned a third outing in Ford Puma Rally1 this year following impressive displays to finish fifth and seventh respectively in Poland and Latvia rounds earlier this year.

The opportunity to pilot a non-hybrid powered Puma in Chile has been made possible thanks to further support from the WRC Promoter that helped fund the Latvians’ last two Rally1 appearances. 

Sesks’ reputation as a future talent has been enhanced by scoring maiden stage wins in Latvia on his way to challenging for a likely third-place finish before a mechanical issue struck his Puma on the final stage. 

The 24-year-old’s performance has impressed M-Sport enough to emerge as a possible candidate for more drives in the future as the team weighs up its options for 2025.

Team principal Richard Millener is keen to see how Sesks will perform in Chile, a rally that will offer a brand new challenge for the 2023 European Rally Championship runner-up. 

“I think there is a lot of interest from a lot of parties about what he’s capable of and, there’s a lot of discussion about Latvia, Poland being very similar events, home events and him knowing them well, can it be repeated in some way?” Millener told Autosport.

“I don’t want to expect that he could repeat challenging for a podium in Latvia. What we want to see is another rally with no issues and him get to the end with no mistakes and effectively have a good result, which I think could be done by being clever as well. 

“The title fight is going to be pretty big and Chile is a pretty tricky rally as well. It is fast and technical I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a couple of accidents. 

“If he can get top five again, fantastic, that’s more the goal, so it’s a bit of an extended audition, I guess. But certainly, I’m not in a position to say that he’s going to be signing with us for next year. It’s just a case of trying to see what else we can do for these junior drivers.

“I think he’s already proven what he’s capable of and this opportunity come about through M-Sport pushing as well, but also through promoter and…