Champion shifts Focus

Three time European Rallycross champion Sverre Isachsen is working on plans to replace the Ford Focus that has carried him to a hat trick of titles but says he will not sell ‘Stina’, as he calls his Focus, until any new car is built, tested and proven to be at least as fast.

“I have a car in my eye but I’m not going to tell you what that is until we are certain that we will change,” Isachsen said, “At the moment everything is open, even closing my own team and going to a commercial team just to drive, absolutely anything is possible although I would like to be able to continue running my own team as I am used to having that level of control.”

The Norwegian has worked with Swedish chassis builder IGM and English tuner Julian Godfrey Engineering over the last five years and identifies them as key players in his future. “I think I have the best technical partners and I’m working with them now. The engine is the heart of the car and most important thing so we have studied the options there and then looked at what we can do with different chassis; we can change a lot there, but the basic size has to be right to make a good car,” he said.

Isachsen has driven Ford Focus (the original version and now the ‘MkII’) since moving to the ERC in 2003 but is most likely to move away from Ford in the future. “It’s not likely that I can do anything with Ford and if there is a chance to work with a manufacturer then of course I want that,” Isachsen said, “I think I have time on my side because the car I have is fast enough and I do not have to change, so we can think about this and plan carefully what we do. If I change, it will only be for something better.”

With the OMSE team so strongly connected to Ford, Isachsen’s acceptance that he has no chance of forging a commercial relationship with the Blue Oval is not surprising, but it leaves him with the prospect of trying to make a manufacturer-level connection with a brand that is not currently involved, or to charm an existing deal away from another team. He was linked with a possible move to Subaru after he drove an Impreza for Subaru Rally Team USA in the 2010 X Games (Rallycross World magazine #80) but subsequently said that he did not think the Subaru flat-four motor was good enough. His current statement that the engine is the most important component do nothing to contradict that view. Perhaps Isachsen’s best hope lays with the VW Group. Encompassing VW, Audi, Seat and Škoda, some engine blocks are common across brands and models and have already been proven in Rallycross.

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