Ford to give Kresta run in 2005.

Any hope that Colin McRae may have had of partnering Toni Gardemeister in the Ford team next season has been dashed by the announcement that Roman Kresta will finally step up to a full-time World Rally Championship seat with the M-Sport team.

The Czech driver will tackle the entire 2005 championship at the wheel of a Ford Focus RS WRC, completing the Blue Oval's line-up well in advance of the first event of the new season, which kicks off in Monte Carlo in January.

Now 28, Kresta has already amassed experienced at world championship level, having started 20 rallies since making his debut in an M-Sport-run Focus WRC on the 2001 Acropolis Rally. Since then, he has interspersed various world championship outings in a factory Skoda and Bozian Racing Peugeot 206 WRC with assaults on events in his homeland. He won the Czech International Rally Championship in both 2000 and 2001, again at the wheel of a factory-supported Skoda Octavia WRC.

"Roman has been selected from a shortlist of seven drivers who could come up with the requirements that we needed for 2005," said M-Sport team director Malcolm Wilson, "Roman has set some excellent stage times against tough competition and he's a highly regarded test driver but, like his new team-mate, I feel that he has never had the ultimate world rally car in which to show his true potential. Looking forward to next season, and the possibility of having only one service during each leg, a driver with good mechanical knowledge is essential to the team."

Kresta will begin testing for the Ford team in Sweden tomorrow [Saturday], where he will spend the weekend familiarising himself with the Focus RS WRC and focusing on tyre testing with Michelin. He will be co-driven by fellow countryman Jan Tom?nek, who has sat beside him on all but three of his world championship outings.