M-Sport’s plans for the 2020 season continue to expand as the Cumbrian firm announce their plans for the Bentley race programme as well as the support categories in the FIA World Rally Championship.

Having unveiled a striking new livery for the Ford Fiesta WRC last week, an equally stunning design has now also been unveiled for the Bentley Continental GT3

The new livery is set to make its debut when Bentley Team M-Sport contest the first round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge at next month’s Bathurst 12-Hour race.

The Australian event will then be followed by races in Belgium, Japan, America and South Africa, and as well as a brand-new livery, the team will also be sporting a driver line-up.

Maxime Soulet returns to the team for a sixth season alongside Jordan Pepper and Jules Gounon who both raced the Bentley last year.

And in the second car, Seb Morris steps up having won the British GT Championship and delivered some impressive outings in Spa and Suzuka last year.

Al Buncombe also becomes a full-time Bentley driver after some strong showings for the team in 2019, and Olly Jarvis returns to the squad having last raced with the Cumbrian outfit back in 2017.

But it’s in the customer teams where M-Sport’s race programme is truly expanding, and 2020 is set to be the team’s biggest yet in terms of customer engineering and development.

Since M-Sport was chosen to run Bentley’s race programme in 2013, the Cockermouth-based squad has developed a race-winning car alongside a flourishing customer programme – and that’s only set to increase and improve this year.

“The new livery looks fantastic and I can’t wait to see it on some of the world’s most famous race tracks,” said M-Sport Race Team Manager Matthew Wilson.

“We’ll be contesting the Intercontinental GT Challenge once again this year, and we’re all really looking forward to getting started.

“This series includes some of the most iconic races in existence, and everyone wants to win the likes of the Bathurst 12 Hours and the Spa 24 Hours.

“We’re no different, and we’ll be giving our all for a strong result on those two especially.

“We’ve got a revised driver line-up hungry for success, and every chance of making this our most successful year to date.

“But it’s on the customer side of the business where things are really progressing.

“The support of customer programmes has always been at the heart of M-Sport, and over the years we have developed a really strong customer network.

“That network is only going to increase this year, and we’ve got a lot of testing and development planned to ensure our customer teams have absolutely everything they need to go out there and bring home a victory for Bentley.”

Elsewhere on the rally scene, M-Sport have also announced their drivers for the FIA World Rally Championship’s premier support series – Frenchman Adrien Fourmaux joining Englishman Rhys Yates to contest the WRC 2 category in a pair of EcoBoost-powered Ford Fiesta R5 MkIIs.

The pairing will get their campaign underway at the season-opener in Monte-Carlo, and Team Principal Richard Millener is keen to see what the latest crop of young drivers can do.

“In Adrien and Rhys we have two very promising young drivers who I know will put absolutely everything into their programmes this year,” said Millener.

“They’ve both got the speed, but they’ve also got the work ethic – and that isn’t always that easy to find.

“I’ve not worked directly with them before, but I’ve been following their progress and there’s no doubting their potential behind the wheel.

“This is a very important season for the pair of them. They both have much still to learn, but I’m keen to see what they can do in 2020.

“They’re both ready to make their mark on the championship, and we plan to give them everything they need to do just that.”