Gronholm comes to Australia boosted by his fifth victory of the season in Turkey and now that
BP Ford lead the manufacturers' championship, eight-points up on Kronos
Citroen, he has pledged to do everything he can to ensure the M-Sport-run squad strengthen their position, especially as
Sebastien Loeb is still out injured.
"It's a tough rally but the speeds are quite high, which I enjoy. It's important to stay on the right line and accurate pace notes are vital for that. This will be my eighth start here so I'm starting to know the roads pretty well. The 1-2 result in Turkey gave the team a real boost and having now moved into the lead of the manufacturers' championship, we'll do everything we can in Australia to strengthen our position," he added.
Mikko Hirvonen meanwhile is also confident, having taken his sixth podium result in seven events in Turkey two weeks ago: "We had a fantastic result for the team in Turkey and I felt really comfortable battling with the Solberg brothers [Petter and Henning] at a faster pace than I had driven on other rallies recently,” he continued. “I've learned so much this year and one of the biggest things is that I feel more comfortable driving at a pace which is closer to Marcus' speed than earlier in the season.
“The team is full of confidence and hopefully we can show the same speed and reliability with the Focus as we did in Turkey.”
Subaru World Rally Team:
[
Petter Solberg, car #5 and
Chris Atkinson, car #6.]
Petter Solberg has admitted that he will have a bit more confidence this weekend in Australia, after a decent outing in Turkey two weeks ago. Although the Norwegian only finished 13th at the finish, he was running second for a good portion of the event and was putting eventual winner, Marcus Gronholm under quite a bit pressure. Indeed ‘Hollywood’ finished the event having taken seven fastest stage times, more than any other driver.
