Subaru team leader
Petter Solberg has said that while his Impreza WRC car was definitely better on the third and final day in New Zealand, it was still far from perfect.
Solberg had to endure another event to forget this weekend and while he did finish in the points and take seventh place, ‘Hollywood' was extremely unhappy with the handling of his car on days 1 and 2.
Furthermre while things did finish on a slighter more positive note, he knows that they have a lot of work to do ahead of the next event in Spain, at the start of October.
"After the service last night the whole chassis felt completely different today,” he reflected. “It's working better - still not good enough - but at least it starts to work, you know.
“It's more like a proper four-wheel-drive car. Whatever the team did has helped anyway.
“I did all I could this rally, but I know we can go much faster. The tests we have planned now will be very important; we still have a lot of work to do,” he added.
Subaru World Rally Team managing director, Richard Taylor meanwhile has said that the Banbury-based outfit will be doing all they can to help the Norwegian during the 4-5 week gap to the Rallye de Espana.
“It was disappointing that Petter could only begin to fight on today's last part of the rally. It's clear that the package is not working for him, and we need to work to help him become competitive with the car,” Taylor stated.
“We have more development work ahead of us now, with asphalt and gravel tests planned in September. There is still more performance to unlock in the WRC2007, and we're looking forward to the next round in Spain.”
