Beyond that, though Subaru's pace of development in 2008 may not have been as quick as he would evidently have liked, he is buoyant about the future, when he is confident the real, rally-winning and title-challenging Petter Solberg will be very much back in evidence once more.

“I know where I've come from and what I've done,” the 13-time rally-winner underlined. “I've won a lot of rallies and I've been faithful to Subaru, and we will be back again and I will be back again next year to fight at the top.

“We've had good times and bad times, but things have improved – we saw the same thing with Marcus [Grönholm] at Peugeot. That's how it is, but I'm feeling positive about the future.”

by Russell Atkins