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.
“It's been a tough event with only limited success for Petter and Chris,” he continued. “With just two fastest stage times we have struggled to match the performance of the last two events and clearly Petter had hoped to finish better than sixth. We have however identified several areas where we will be able to improve the car and we are looking forward now to Rally GB and a fresh start in the 2007 season.”
Pirelli were equally disappointed with the result: “We share the team's frustration with the results this weekend,” added Pirelli rally manager, Mario Isola. “Today Petter has continued to struggle and he has been unable to exploit the potential of the car and tyre combination. We focus now on Great Britain, with a four day test later this week and hopefully a better result on the rally.”
