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Britain's Matthew Wilson will take in his home round of the World Rally Championship this week, when he drives over the start ramp ahead of the 2008 Wales Rally GB. Crash.net Radio's Rob Wilkins caught up with the Stobart Ford man recently and spoke to him about his hopes for the final round in this year's WRC and got his thoughts on his year overall...


Crash.net:
Matt, the season is almost at an end now. How are you feeling going into Wales Rally GB?

Matthew Wilson:
I am looking forward to it. It is always nice to come back and do your home rally. It has been a good year and we have been making progress. It would be nice to get a strong result to finish off the year in GB. We will just see what we can do. There are new stages on the Friday, which will spice it up a little bit.

Crash.net:
Rally GB is the event you have the most experience of in the WRC. You were sixth last year. What result would you be happy with this year?

MW:
It is going to be difficult to know what to expect. Obviously there are totally new stages on the Friday. The rest of the stages are reversed as well. It is going to be a completely new rally. There is only one stage that we have actually got pace-notes for. It is going to really change it around a little bit. It could make it quite interesting. We will definitely though be going to try and equal what we did last year, if not beat it. That could be difficult. But we will give it a good go.

Crash.net:
Does the 'home' crowd spur you on?

MW:
Yeah and I think there will be even more people out now that we are going further up into Wales. Hopefully a few more people will come out on the mid-Wales stages on the Friday and we should get a few more spectators in the likes of Sweet Lamb and places like that. I think it will be good and there should be plenty of home support.

Crash.net:
The event is taking place a little bit later this year - do you think that will make any difference in terms of the weather?

MW:
I don't think so. Obviously with the weather we are having at the minute we could get anything! [laughs] But I don't think it will make a massive difference. The only thing is that obviously the Friday stages are probably a little bit higher up than the others and there is maybe a chance of some fog or whatever, which could make it tricky. But like I said, I am really looking forward to it and I think you can expect anything at this time of year in Britain.

Crash.net:
There are some night stages on the Rally GB. How does that affect the way you prepare for the event and make your pace-notes?

MW:
Not too differently to be honest. We did some night stages last year and yeah, they were really, really difficult. There was a lot of fog and very heavy rain and so visibility wasn't too great. But if you do get a really clear day and into the night as well, then the stages are probably even more enjoyable in the dark than they are in the day. It is just another challenge. I do like them and hopefully the weather will be a little bit clearer than last year and we won't have that fog because if you have fog and darkness it makes it really tricky. I am just hoping it stays clear in the evening.

Crash.net:
This has been your third full season in the WRC. How would you sum it up?

MW:
It has been a big improvement. We have gone from strength-to-strength and we probably could have scored a few more points than we have got as well. There are obviously a couple of incidences - for example, in Sweden we lost out on the last day while in fifth position and so we lost a few points there. Also in Argentina we were lying fourth or fifth again. There are a couple of things that have not gone our way and we could have probably been even further up in the points table. But the main thing is we have been making improvements and if we can carry that on to GB and even straight into next year it will be good.

Crash.net:
Do you feel more confident now going to each event compared to 2007 and 2006?

MW: