by Rob Wilkins
TO HEAR THE INTERVIEW IN FULL WITH MALCOLM WILSON: CLICK HERE
The
BP Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team will be gunning for its third manufacturers' title in succession this year, while
Mikko Hirvonen will now be the #1 pilot and out to challenge for the honours in the race for the drivers' crown.
Crash.net Radio caught up with team director Malcolm Wilson at the
Autosport International Show to find out what we can expect from the M-Sport-run outfit in 2008...
Crash.net:
Malcolm, how have preparations been going for the season ahead?
Malcolm Wilson:
Very good, we have actually done two tests - one in Sweden and one in the south of France. We have got another one in the south of France just prior to Monte Carlo. There are a lot of changes, with the new Pirelli tyres, but the guys - Mikko [Hirvonen] and Jari-Matti [Latvala] - are certainly very encouraged and very happy with the performance, which is a little bit different to what they have been use to. They seem very confident with everything that has been happening and they are just eager to get back behind the wheel now and get started on Monte Carlo and get started with the new season.
Crash.net:
How happy are you with the team's driver line-up for 2008?
MW:
As you can imagine Marcus [Gronholm] will be a big miss to the team because of what he brought over the last couple of seasons. Twelve victories is a very difficult and very hard act to follow. But also Mikko did an incredible job in backing him up on many, many rallies and collecting manufacturers' points. We feel then he is ready to step up to the mark. He won three events last season and again Jari-Matti's pace has been there for everybody to see, especially mid-season in '07, along with a few accidents. But he also showed great maturity in the final part of the year, which resulted in his first podium. Overall then I think we have a very exciting and probably the youngest driver line-up in the world championship there has ever been. We are very confident we will be winning rallies again.
Crash.net:
How big a loss is it not to have Marcus?
MW:
We have to deal with it. There is no question it is probably twelve months sooner than we thought. We thought he might do another year and in an ideal world it would have been nice to give Jari-Matti another season without probably the same amount of pressure. But, as I mentioned earlier, if you look at the way he has developed in the final quarter of the season then I feel very confident that he can learn a lot from Mikko. Mikko learned a lot from Marcus and Mikko is now a very, very old head on young shoulders. As long as Jari-Matti is prepared to look, learn and listen, which I feel very confident he will do, then, we will have a very strong team.
Crash.net:
One of the big changes this year concerns the tyres with Pirelli coming in as the control tyre for the WRC. There is also no run-flat mousse. What effect will all of that have on the championship and the events?
MW:
We always say that a rally is never over until you cross the finish line and I think that will be even more so in the future. There is still a great unknown out there at the moment. All it needs is for a driver to throw up one rock and you come round a corner and you are on your line and you can't change it. It is inevitable then that you will probably burst a tyre. You could end up in a situation when you have got a very good lead and coming out of the final corner on the final stage something like that could happen. I think it is another dimension that we are going to have to get use to and there is still a lot of tactics to be sorted out. Do you take one spare? Do you take two spares? There are a lot of possibilities and while everyone will be looking for performance, I think we will see drivers' changing wheels on stages.
