by Russell Atkins

Chris Atkinson is confident of a far more competitive second half to the 2007 World Rally Championship campaign, vowing Subaru will finally get back to where it belongs by taking the fight to pace-setters Citroën and Ford.

The Japanese marque has now not triumphed on a WRC event since Wales Rally GB almost two years ago, and Atkinson ended the 2006 season equal ninth in the drivers' standings with just 20 points to his name – and under pressure. So far in 2007 he has answered his critics with aplomb, racking up 15 points courtesy of five top eight finishes in the opening eight events, coming close to the podium with a superb performance in Monte Carlo and even leading on occasion. Subaru, he is adamant, is very much back on the right track once more.

“It's not been too bad,” the Australian – still in only his third full season of WRC competition – told Crash.net Radio during the course of Prodrive's open weekend at its Banbury headquarters. “I'm fairly happy with how I've performed. I've set fastest times on tarmac, gravel and snow this year and we were leading the last rally in Greece, so things are there and it's not too far away from all coming together.

“The highs I think have been leading in Greece and the Monte Carlo super-special; that was pretty cool and the atmosphere was great. To go and win the stage and take a place off Mikko (Hirvonen) – ok it wasn't for a podium but it was a good battle rally-long – was fun. As to lows, obviously the crash in Portugal wasn't that much fun and things hadn't been going as planned up until then, but the three rallies since that have all been quite good for me.”

Indeed, nine of Atkinson's points this year have come since the revised Impreza was introduced for round four in Mexico, and while agreeing the new model has made a welcome difference to the team's fortunes, he equally underlined the fact there is plenty more still to come, beginning with Rally Finland – one of his favourite events on the calendar – in just under three weeks' time.

“We've made improvements in some areas and there are other areas we still have to work on,” the 27-year-old explained, “but the engineers and whole team have been working really hard over this two-month break. I think come Finland, Germany and New Zealand things should be in much better order.

“I love the stages in Finland. Unfortunately we had some technical problems last year, but this time I think things are in much better shape and we should have good speed there. We would probably have finished fourth last year if we hadn't had the problems, so you never know where we could be.”

Subaru currently lies just two points clear of Stobart Motorsport in the battle for third place in the manufacturers' table, with only half the total of rival Citroën and barely a third that of the works Ford outfit. Atkinson is optimistic of being able to close that gap over the remaining eight rounds.

“We obviously want to put our foot down a bit now and start fighting with the main Ford team and Citroën,” he stressed. “We showed that a little bit in Greece (where both he and team-mate Petter Solberg sat comfortably inside the top three at the end of day one, ahead of reigning three-time world champion Sébastien Loeb), and hopefully we can do that some more in the second half of the year.