The Subaru
World Rally team endured another torrid event over the weekend on the Rally Finland, after number one driver,
Petter Solberg crashed out on day two and
Chris Atkinson was compromised by mechanical issues.
Indeed there were few positives for the Banbury-based squad, at least on the surface, and Atkinson's eventual eleventh place and two manufacturers' points' was as good as it got. However Subaru sporting director, Luis Moya was keen to emphasise they
are going forward and Solberg's pace before his off, when he was in contention to finish on the rostrum was definitely something to be happy about.
"We always knew that Rally Finland was going to be a difficult event, however both our drivers have found the challenge bigger than expected," summed-up Moya. "Petter's accident on Saturday ended a realistic podium, while Chris' problems are in no way his fault."
Atkinson went into the second day in sixth place, however he had to complete the first loop stuck in third gear and tumbled down the leader-board as a result - losing over 12 minutes. Despite that though the Aussie didn't give up and set three top-five stages times on the final day's four stages.
"It was good to see some very strong pace from Chris when he has had a clean run," added Moya. "We are also encouraged that the work over the summer break has brought improvements to the car and while there is still much more to do, we know we are going in the right direction. Now our focus is on getting the best package in place for Rally Japan and we hope to repeat our previous performance on that event."
Atkinson meanwhile felt they had made progress and while he was disappointed to lose so much time on Saturday, they still put the rest of the event to good use, by testing 'bits and bobs' for the next few rounds.
"We had a good final day without any problems. We've been working on the development of the car and we've found a bit of a direction and some ideas to go on," concluded the Aussie. "I'm pretty happy with our performance over the weekend as we did exactly what we were supposed to and ran throughout with the top five. We look forward to Japan as I had a good result there when we scored our first podium and we're working on getting another one."
