I really like the chassis. The car is handling well. There is a few little things on the rear end that need some attention but we are hoping what we have done between the rallies will make that problem a bit better. The car is very, very good. The transmission and everything is good. It is just the engine that lacks a little bit of response. But we have got some thoughts and we are hoping we might have made some progress. We have lightened the car a little bit more again too. All-in-all the car is great. The package is great. But as always when something is new things don't always go 100 per cent smoothly. However Prodrive have been a great help and obviously our own team now know the cars much better than when we first got them. Things are looking better. I am enjoying driving the car.

Crash.net:
You seem to have had more luck with it in the BRC than a number of drivers' have had in the PWRC?

DH:
I think it is the nature of the events. The BRC rallies are very high speed and the more high speed you have the more air flow you have coming through the car and that keeps the cooling down. That has been one of the issues the other drivers have been having. Also our rallies tend to be a lot smoother than some of the PWRC rallies. But there is also more to it than that. I think the control tyre they have to use on the WRC rallies is very, very hard. That is causing a lot of suspension failures and not just on the new Subaru, but on the existing Group N cars as well. There are a lot of things that are different. But I am fairly pleased with the way our guys back at base have been running the car and working through things and finding things out. I think our cars are probably as good as any other Subaru's out there.

Crash.net:
The big challenge this year is you are not only driving, but you are running your own team too. How has that been?

DH:
I must admit at the start of the year it was very, very tough getting everything together and getting everything in place. But now we are up and running we have a great bunch of guys on the team. Everyone is working very hard and they know where they need to work. It is actually running quite smoothly. I am really enjoying it. We want to try and expand now and we are looking to maybe trying to run some more programmes next year for other people. We had a lot of enquiries at the start of the year. But I didn't feel we were ready to take on too many customers. I wanted to go out and see what we could do. I wanted us to learn the ropes and then try and get some good customers on board for next year.

Crash.net:
You've been doing the Chinese Rally Championship again and that has got off to a good start too hasn't it, with that win on the Shanghai Rally?

DH:
That was a fantastic result. We went out there and jumped in the car and it felt like putting on an old pair of slippers. The team has obviously moved forward because in China, like everywhere else, you can't afford to stand still and sit on your laurels. The competition is getting stronger and there are more teams out there now. The cars are all of a very high standard. But we went out there and we had a good first couple of groups of stages, which gave us quite a good lead. We were then able to control the rally pretty much from there onwards. I think we won every stage bar one. It was a great way to start that championship. I don't think anyone else has won a rally there now except me for 16 months. That is quite a good record to have although there was some very sad news a few weeks ago when one of our rivals was killed in an off-road Dakar type event. That was a big shame.

Crash.net:
Have you got anything else lined-up for this year in addition to your planned commitments in the BRC and CRC?

DH:
We almost went to Bulgaria. But that just didn't quite come together. There is a lot going on. When I get back from the Isle of Man I am home for two days and then I go off to Indonesia to do some driver training and some testing out there for the team. These are all the sort of little things that can potentially lead to other drives. But at the moment I am busy enough with what I have got on and although it would be good to do some more, I am conscious if you do more rallies, it is more running costs, more wear and tear and you can very easily take your eye off the ball of doing well in the BRC. We are certainly thinking of maybe doing an event like the Bulldog or something at the end of the year in preparation for Rally GB. That is one of the plans we have in place. We just have to see how the cars are at that time of the year.

Crash.net:
What have you made of the WRC this season?

DH:
It has been great. It is good to see some competition for Sebastien [Loeb]. Obviously it is all up and down. I think the new regulations of not letting the best drivers always have the best road position, has really spiced the championship up. The tactics side of it and the fact you can use your head a little bit to determine the rally, while obviously some people are critical of it, I think it is a great thing. It certainly makes the competition much closer because if you put Sebastien eighth on the road for most of the championship no one is going to beat him. It is a good way of closing things up and giving other people a chance and bringing some other names forward.


TO HEAR THE INTERVIEW IN FULL WITH DAVID HIGGINS: CLICK HERE