Subaru number one driver,
Petter Solberg has said that while this weekend's Rally New Zealand wasn't much fun, he is determined to stay positive and hopes that the small improvements they found will help them on the Wales Rally GB.
Petter eventually brought his Impreza WRC car home in sixth place overall, a position he was cemented in pretty much all weekend. All-in-all the Norwegian struggled for grip throughout and while the situation improved, he was never in line to finish on the podium and was no where near the pace of the two
BP Ford drivers' - Marcus Gronholm and
Mikko Hirvonen. Indeed at the finish he was nearly 5 minutes off Gronholm, who took the victory in his Focus WRC car.
“I tried as hard as I could but I've simply not been able to challenge the fastest guys this weekend,” said Petter. “Of course it's very frustrating; I want to win rallies, and it's not much fun when that isn't possible, but I will keep positive and focus on improving the pace. We made some small improvements this weekend; we learned some more about the car and the tyres, and hopefully that will enable us to get a better result on the last round in Wales. Sixth place was certainly not the target I had in mind before the start of the event.
“But I am still optimistic despite the various problems that held me up on Friday and Saturday. The performance of the car is good, as can be seen from our times today, which were more comparable to those of the frontrunners.”
Subaru World Rally team managing director, Richard Taylor meanwhile was also unhappy with the pace of the Impreza, although
Chris Atkinson's two fastest stage times on Saturday, before he retired in SS9 after hitting a rock and damaging the suspension, was further cause for at least a little bit of optimism.
