by Rob Wilkins
Pentti Airikkala believes that the Subaru
World Rally Team has virtually no chance of getting back on terms with
Citroen and Ford - and that the Impreza WRC2008 has a fundamental design flaw.
Subaru has struggled in recent years and the Banbury-based outfit hasn't won an event in the
World Rally Championship now since 2005. Furthermore while the new car - billed as the most 'radically different Subaru WRC car in 15 years' - has given the Banbury-based outfit cause for some optimism since its debut on the Acropolis back in May, progress in the second half of the season hasn't been nearly as quick as team boss David Richards and co would have liked.
Indeed
Petter Solberg and
Chris Atkinson both remain quite a way off the works
Citroen C4 WRC's of
Sebastien Loeb and Dani Sordo and the
BP Ford Focus' of
Mikko Hirvonen and Jari-Matti Latvala.
Speaking exclusively to
Crash.net Radio at the Castle Combe Rallyday last month, Airikkala noted that the main issue is to do with the location of the engine.
"Subaru is dead. It is dead. The problem is the same as Audi had - and still has. The engine is in the wrong position," he explained.
"It is too far forward relative to the front axle and unless they change the engine location they are not going to do very well.
"I have driven all of these cars and having too much weight in the front makes the car understeer. It doesn't change direction as quickly as other WRC cars where the engine is less on the top of the front axle. There is a big difference. Subaru is saying it is great because the engine is so low. But I don't buy it.
"You have to have a weight transfer that is very fast in
World Rally cars. You don't need it in F1 cars, but the cars without wings, like rally cars, they have to have a weight transfer that is very quick. To achieve that you have to put the weight high up in the car and then you can change direction very quickly.
"Look at the switches they have now-a-days in WRC cars - the indicators, the windscreen wiper switch and the change of brake balance - they are all down in the floor. Everyone knows that is the wrong thing to do. Guess what, I won't be very popular for saying all this will!"
