Watch Ford WRC rally ace Mikko Hirvonen pilot his Fiesta World Rally Car around a makeshift gymkhana course at Battersea power station in our new video clip above. That’s CAR Magazine’s road test editor Ben Barry in the passenger seat. The Fiesta WRC is so raucous, you’ll struggle to hear much conversation between the two, but we’re impressed by how much Ben ‘Sideways’ Barry seems to be enjoying his ride.
‘It’s both shockingly impressive and absolutely hideous to sit alongside Ford’s number one,’ says Barry, once he’s had a nice cup of tea and a sit down. ‘Hirvonen’s commitment is total as we slide through gaps between skips, roar at full throttle from Tarmac to gravel and pivot around an articulated truck’s trailer, the dust cloud we’ve created obscuring our view.
‘Perhaps the best/worst part is saved to last, when Hirvonen donuts around a cone with pinpoint precision, then exits at full throttle, Scandinavian flicks us towards his crew, then purposefully throws us into a spin which mutates into a tyre-frying donut to bewilderingly deposit us back under the small awning from whence we departed.’
Ben Barry (left) and some bloke called Mikko Hirvonen in the Ford Fiesta WRC racer. ‘Don’t chunder on my new dashboard, alright?’
