From what I can see, which, I’ll admit, is not a lot, M-Sport and Ford have won their first battle. This thing is truly bad-ass.
Where am I? Well, that’s the thing, I can’t really tell you. I’m not allowed. I’m not allowed because I wasn’t supposed to be here. Suffice to say it’s England. The top bit. And this picture is all we got from a day hiding behind trees.
What you see before you is the all-new Raptor T1+. Forget what you saw Nani Roma driving during Dakar in January, that was the old car. This thing is the real deal. This is what Ford Performance’s global director Mark Rushbrook had in mind when he talked of the Blue Oval and M-Sport combining to do amazing things in the dunes.
Nani Roma's 2024 Ranger is being replaced by the all-new Raptor / Photo: A.S.O./Antonin Vincent/DPPI
Granted, we’re a long way from the dunes right now, but this thing is looking good and sounding great. From the snap we grabbed, you can see some fairly aggressive styling and aero work lurking beneath the camo paint job.
Is this the finished product? Almost certainly not. Don’t forget, M-Sport has the base of the Neil Woolridge Motorsport-prepared Raptor to work from and, while the 2025 Dakar car is a ground-up newbie, this could still be a mule in the style of the first Puma Rally1 car than ran as a re-worked Fiesta.
As for who’s going to be driving it, we know discussions are ongoing with Carlos Sainz about a sensational return to Ford. If there’s one takeaway from a clandestine liaison in the woods, it’s that Ford and M-Sport are building a car worthy of the legendary Spaniard.
