Crash.net:
Chris Atkinson has been showing quite good speed in the #2 car that must be quite encouraging?
PM:
It is. Chris is in a slightly different position though. He had to show some speed to get his two-year extension to his contract, which he has done and he is doing a very, very good job. We are all around the same sort of speed however. The car is what it is and we are all ringing the neck out of it as best we can. But we have got a good team now. We have got stability. We have got two years for Chris, two years for ourselves and Xavier Pons is there for another season. There is real good consistency and we need to capitalise on that now.
Crash.net:
Does it help having Pons in a third car or is there a danger of diluting the team’s efforts?
PM:
There is always a danger - but at the end of the day it is just a third add on. It doesn’t dilute any effort at all. It just means you bring another ‘x’ amount of personnel to run the car. But it doesn’t lead to any dilution at all. In fact it probably helps because Xevi is slightly outside of the main world championship rules. If there is anything we find in testing that we are not 100 per cent sure of he can actually try it for us before we get to the next event. A third car actually helps then rather than anything else.
Crash.net:
Marcus Gronholm has announced he is going to retire. Do you think the sport will miss him?
PM:
Very much so. If you look just a few weeks ago back to New Zealand we had the biggest fight of all time there with Marcus and [Sebastien] Loeb. At the minute those two cars, those two drivers’ are the ones that are fighting it out and to go back to Loeb winning everything again isn’t what we want. It is going to be quite interesting next year when Marcus goes. I fully understand his decision to go. He needs to move on. He is at the right age. He has earned enough and everything else. But the sport in general, the spectators, the teams, everybody is going to miss him really, really badly. I think you will see at the second or third event next year we will be wishing that he hadn’t gone.
Crash.net:
Is there a danger
Sebastien Loeb is going to run away with it next year?
PM:
There is always that danger - but you can also be tricked into thinking Sebastien is going to win every event next year and that would be the wrong thing to think as well, both from his point of view and as well as our point of view. He has still got to go out there and get on with the job. It is just disappointing that Marcus has gone but Mikko [Hirvonen] is showing some tremendous speed at the minute. Mikko is not going to be far behind. I don’t know if he can actually take the fight to the last stage with Sebastien. However looking at his performance in Norway this year you would say he would. But then on other events Mikko goes very cold. He isn’t going to be far behind though and let’s face it he is right up there now. As soon as Marcus has gone he will take over the responsibility of the number one driver and I think you will see a different person and different string of results in Mikko next year.
Crash.net:
Who do you think Ford are considering for the vacant slot now?
PM:
That is a difficult one. But if you look at it common-sense wise [Jari-Matti] Latvala is there ready to move in. Mikko will go up to number one and Latvala will slot into number two. I guess everybody is guessing that way. They could go down the specialist route and get [Francois] Duval in to do the tarmac events and even Marcus has said he hasn’t retired full-time. If Marcus comes back and does five gravel rallies and Duval does the tarmac rallies all of a sudden you have got a very interesting team there as well. Ford has got a lot of possibilities – either using specialists or signing up somebody like Latvala. It depends on what route they want to go down. There are certainly quite a few options open to them.
Crash.net:
Is it a year too soon for Jari though?
