by Rob Wilkins
TO HEAR THE INTERVIEW IN FULL WITH CHRISTIAN LORIAUX: CLICK HERE
Christian Loriaux is the technical director at the
BP Ford World Rally Team and the man responsible for heading up the team that designs and develops the Focus RS WRC car. We caught up with Christian at the
end of October and here he speaks exclusively to
Rallycourse and
Crash.net Radio about his role, the challenges it encompasses and more...
Crash.net:
Christian, Ford introduced the new Focus RS WRC 07 this year for the Rally Finland. What were the main changes made to the car in comparison to the 06 model?
CL:
There were not tons of changes, because the ‘06 car was already so evolved and competitive. It was difficult to make it much better. But we refined a fair bit in terms of aerodynamics with a new rear wing. We had a new front bumper too because with the original one we had very little time for testing and it was effectively too low. The front of the front bumper dragged on the ground all the time and so we changed that. There was also constant development on the engine and a lot of weight saving on that and on all of the other components on the car. All-in-all there was probably a weight saving of 20 kilos and more on the car, which helped us to lower the centre of gravity and improve the weight distribution of the car.
Crash.net:
That sounds like a lot of fine tuning, is that basically why those changes were made?
CL:
Yeah it is a lot of fine-tuning because now-a-days to find 25 kilos in a car, which is already optimised, you need to find like 250 parts where you can save 100 grams. It is not a matter of changing one part and saving 20 or 25 kilos. It is a matter of changing 250 parts and saving 100 grams at a time. It is a pretty laborious job and sometimes you think are we pushing it a bit too far? But it is needed if you want to succeed and keep on winning.
Crash.net:
How does the Focus RS WRC 07 compare in your opinion to the cars of your rivals, the
Citroen C4 and the
Subaru Impreza?
CL:
I’d like to hope it is better and at the moment we are leading both the manufacturers’ world championship and the drivers’ world championship
[in the end Ford won the manufacturers’ again, but Marcus Gronholm lost out in the drivers’ championship – ed]. I’d like to hope we manage to get one or two of those titles. But you have to be careful. Like
McLaren showed in
Formula 1 this year it is very difficult to win a championship. Anything can happen at the last minute. You have to be very careful. But the car has won, I have lost count of how many rallies, because
Mikko Hirvonen has just won Rally Japan over the weekend and we had five Focus’ in the top seven there. The car has proven it is fast on everything because we have won on snow, on rough gravel and nearly on tarmac too. It has been very reliable. We haven’t had any retirements yet this season - and touch wood there are two rallies to go and if it keeps going that well we should have a very good season.
Crash.net:
What advantages does the 07 Focus have and what disadvantages does it have in relation to the competition?
CL:
I’d like to hope we don’t have any disadvantages. The Focus is a very good car to start with and we have a very good team of people that put the car together well. Everybody is very conscientious. I have got a team of 20-25 engineers and designers behind me that are all very professional and motivated to win. That is why we have a competitive car. I’d like to think it is the fastest car out there and I think we have pretty much proven that. But so far it has been the most reliable one as well. It seems the team has done a good job and hopefully we will get the rewards.
![Marcus Gronholm and Christian Loriaux [Pic credit: Ford/worldrallypics.com]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/197320.jpg)
