Subaru boss David Richards is looking for his team to make a step forward on the Rallye de France-Tour de Corse this week, the second asphalt rally in as many weekends and also the last tarmac outing of the season.

Petter Solberg led the way for the Banbury-based outfit in Spainn, taking his Impreza WRC2008 to fifth, while Chris Atkinson was seventh and Brice Tirabassi tenth in the sister cars.

Now Richards wants to see his trio of drivers' make the most of that and utilise it in Corsica, scene of the thirteenth round in this year's World Rally Championship.

"It is perhaps misleading to look at Spain and Corsica as two separate events, because we move from one immediately to the next and it is so important that we continue our learning and progress across both," DR stated.

"We learned some good lessons in Spain, and it is vital that we carry these into this coming weekend's competition to take a step forward with our performance on tarmac."

While the Rallye de France-Tour de Corse is another asphalt event though, the stages are not really anything like those in Spain and it is not known as the 'Rally of a Thousand Corners' for nothing.

"Corsica is a lot more bumpy than Spain, so subjects the cars and drivers to different types of loads, but it's still a fast one and sees the cars pull similar lateral forces of about 1.5g," added Subaru's operations director, Paul Howarth. "The surface is more abrasive so tyre wear could be more of a factor.

"They're different natured events, but the drivers should know the cars well coming from Spain, have good knowledge of the tyres and know the limits, so be in a good rhythm from the off. As with Spain, that's what you need to be fast here.

"The weather can be hard to predict and localised showers often have an impact on the leaderboard. It's common for cars to leave a dry service park and arrive at a rain-soaked stage.

"Operationally this is quite a tricky event as within 24 hours of finishing in Spain, we are in Corsica ready to rebuild and re-prepare the cars for the start of the rally. All the teams are well rehearsed in it though, so it only really becomes a problem if something unexpected happens that affects the timings in place."