I don’t see any disadvantages. OK to start with, for sure, the Focus is quite a big car, compared to the C4, which is a smaller car. As such we have more drag and a higher centre of gravity because the car is higher. On paper then we have got a small disadvantage but we seem to be able to manage to cope with it. So, no real disadvantages.
Crash.net:
How did Marcus Gronholm and
Mikko Hirvonen re-act to the new car when they drove it? What were their initial impressions?
CL:
Usually we do back-to-backs when we do a new car, but this time, because the changes were not so massive, we effectively didn’t do a back-to-back test. We knew the cars behaviour was better because we could see the handling was better in some places. But we couldn’t really tell how much better and faster it would be and we were a bit surprised by how much we were in front of the opposition when we started competing with it in Finland. But that was good to see and we were not going to complain about it!
Crash.net:
Did it take them time to adapt to it at all?
CL:
No not at all because the car is very similar to the previous ones – but just easier to drive. We knew what direction we wanted to improve it and we did and so there was no need for adaptation for them.
Crash.net:
The Focus RS WRC is developed in-house, but is there anything that is out-sourced and brought in, maybe the dampers and so on?
CL:
For sure we do work in very close collaboration with some suppliers - and the dampers are a good example. We work with a company called Reiger, which is based in Holland. We have been working with them for the best part of 8-9 years. They do all the dampers and send them over to us. They are like a branch of our company but they are not – they are completely independent. But we are like friends and we work closely.
![Marcus Gronholm and Christian Loriaux [Pic credit: Ford/worldrallypics.com]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/197320.jpg)
