On the heels of the announcement that McCumbee McAleer Racing and driver Nate Cicero had severed professional ties, Ford Racing have now also confirmed that they’re ending their partnership with the 21-year-old, dropping him from their team’s junior development program.
In a quote provided to SportsCar365.com, Ford kept things short and to the point in regards to Cicero’s standing with the brand, stating pointedly that the now former GS points leader in the Michelin Pilot Challenge series is no longer associated with the dev program.
“Ford Racing holds every member of our program to a high standard of conduct, on and off the track. Effective immediately, Nate Cicero is no longer part of the Driver Development program.”
In directly related news, McCumbee McAleer Racing announced that Finn Wiebelhaus will be the one to replace Cicero alongside Robert Noaker, with the move being ready and in place for this weekend at Virginia International Raceway.
The team will be looking to finish out the Michelin Pilot season as GS champions, as the MMR Mustang GT4 currently leads the title fight by 100 points over both Turner Motorsports and Auto Technic Racing, who are both tied for second place with 1710 points a piece.
For an introduction to Wiebelhaus, the 20-year-old is a rising talent in the GT landscape and is already rated as a Silver driver by the FIA. The young German is currently competing with Haupt Racing Team in both GT World Challenge Europe and in DTM as a rookie. Wiebelhaus has scored a P3 and P2 finish in his first-year campaign in the DTM circuit, while last season he secured the ADAC GT Masters championship alongside teammate Salman Owega, also racing for HRT.
As for Cicero, the immediate and sudden fall from one of the more engaging personalities on the IMSA/GT4 grid to a complete banishment across the board in his professional career brings way more questions than answers at this point in time. We aren’t in the business of alluding to sources or things we hear when we ever do have something of substance, and this is by no means going on the record with reporting any sort of update (are those enough qualifiers?) but what we can contribute is that from what we’ve heard through people with knowledge of the happenings, we can confidently say that the responses by both MMR and Ford Racing are certainly justified and warranted if these things turn out to be accurate.
It’s unfortunate for a variety of reasons from the people involved to the damaged professional relationships and beyond, but again, the actions of MMR and Ford will surely be looked at as swift and responsible once all of the facts come out, whenever that may be.
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