WRC » Airikkala: Subaru is dead!

Maybe Loeb should do what Rossi did in MotoGP and swap teams just to prove how dominant he really is?

maybe there's a clause in his contract: he's French and throughout his competitive career he's only ever rallied either a Citroën, the Saxo, or for Citroën. coincidence? or maybe he just doesn't think anything else is any good.

agree though, to prove himself a true all-rounder he should get out of his comfort zone and drive for someone else, as do some of the best champions from other disciplines.

I agree with Pentti
Subaru is totally dead,
The problem is not engine location as Pentti said, but by solberg who was giving wrong(false) information (data) because of his arrogance of not accepting his driving mistakes: so the car has been developped with wrong data in computer simulation.

If Marcus could join Subaru

As for the results over the course of several years, it may be true what is said. However, the races themselves have changed to be shorter, quicker. They maybe haven't adapted as quickly as others. That, and other factors, including drivers have made it seem Subaru is stuck in fourth place. All-in-all Subaru makes a car that fits in alot of arenas. If you could only have one car to fit everything, it would finish top ten in many types of races.

Good call Pentti! Subaru has been dead since 2005.

Seems odd that a company that understood how to make a good rally car not that long ago, seems to have lost the plot though.

I agree with him as far as engine placement goes. A low polar moment of inertia is quite a bit more important then the height of your CG for rallying. The problem is that Subaru either don't seem to realize this, or much more likely, they do realize it but since they are too in love with there boxer engine and "Symmetrical All-wheel Drive," they refuse to change. If they actually changed to an inline four, like they should, then they would be admitting that they made a big mistake and one of their precious "Core Technologies" is not really advantages. I have a feeling that the marketing department, ironically enough, as a lot to do with SWRT's stubbornness to change the engine layout.

Just in case someone needed the "gaps" filled in previous comment...
Putting the engine further back would decrease the polar moment of inertia which would make the car respond to directional changes quicker. The reason Prodrive can't put the engine further back is because the boxer is too wide and or because they need room for the transmission which they put right behind it. But don't get me wrong, I would really like to see the SWRT be competitive again, but I don't see that happening until they stop trying to work around the fundamental design flaws of the car instead of just fixing them...

Why not move the front crossmember & wheels farther forward? They could dry sump the oil pan and move the diff to where the oil pan was and move the engine back the difference. Wouldn't that move the engine back about 8 inches? I'd also put the weight more between the axles because the wheels would more in line with the engine instead of the engine hanging out in front of the wheels. Either way... SUBARU ROCKS!!! Their cars have more in common with the road going cars than all the others combined!

In the Richard Burns and Colin McRae times, the engine was even wurse placed than now..Yet they won everything. What the new impreza lacks is the correct diff settings, good dampers and the most: an engine that can match the engine of the citroen...
Just saw the test in northern Spain: looks fast though..I'm sure they get podiums in Japan or GB..Or both!
For shure it would be good to have new blood in the driver's departement. Petter now is in good form, but someone like Duval, Gronholm...would boost the development