By the middle of 1998, Ford chose M-Sport to design and build the new Ford Focus WRC. The new car appeared in 1999 with a new driver — Colin McRae — and immediately sprang to the attention of the world press by recording fastest stage times on its first event, the Monte Carlo Rally. However, the two cars entered were excluded from the event due to the use of an illegal modified water pump. By the third event — the Safari Rally in Kenya — the team had scored its first WRC victory. A month later, an on-form Colin McRae made it two in a row at the Rally of Portugal.