A big boy’s Focus

New Focus III gets quiet international debut.

There was no great fanfare, no launch party, no hullaballoo. Ford’s latest Focus, the 2011 Focus ‘III’, made its international motor sport debut in hands of Belgian Jos Jansen in this weekend’s Autodrop seventh round of the FIA European Rallycross Championship at the Eurocircuit in Valkenswaard. The latest in the Focus line, the 2011 model is not yet homologated but was approved by the FIA and placed on the list of non-homologated, mass-produced cars eligible for Rallycross on August 4.

The first example of the new car has been built by Belgian team Pauwels Motorsport. Based on a shell, the basic fabrication of which was done by Jernberg Motorsport in Sweden, the Focus III is a five-door car and continues to use the tried and tested longitudinal engine-transmission arrangement, power coming from a Julian Godfrey Engineering-prepared Cosworth YB motor.

Team boss Koen Pauwels drove the car in its initial test session. “It’s 50mm wider and 4mm longer than the MkII Focus, the roofline is lower so the centre of gravity is also lower. Wider and lower, they are key areas and the new one is definitely more stable than the old Focus. I’ve never driven a car that feels so good, its gives you the confidence to go faster because it feels so stable,” said Pauwels who has now sold the car to Jos Jansen.

“I have another shell in the workshop now and we will start work to build it into a Supercar,” said Pauwels who is keeping an eye on technical developments in the sport, “We will build the new car as a longitudinal one because that is proven, we know how to do it and we have a lot of spare parts for that system. I’m watching what happens with transverse but it’s a very big step; you don’t just build the car with a transverse engine, there is the gearbox, and suspension and engine mounts and everything else that goes with it. At the moment I will keep an eye on the others and let Mr Hansen prove that it works before changing what we do,” he said in reference to KHM Citroën team boss Kenneth Hansen’s new DS3 that was given its debut at Höljes in Sweden last month and which the official Citroën team continues to test away from events.

The only other place, we think, that you will see the 2011 Focus III in competition is in the British Touring Car Championship where Team AON uses the latest version of the car as the basis of its ‘Global Touring Car’. But with a paltry 270bhp and front-wheel drive to propel this 1170kg machine, we’re not sure that it quite matches up to the 560bhp/1300kg Rallycross Supercar!

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