WRC: Petter - New developments on way for Sardinia.

[Rory Phoulorie]

Subaru's Petter Solberg has confirmed that the Banbury-based outfit will have more new developments on the Impreza WRC 2007 for the Rally d'Italia Sardegna next week.

Although Petter failed to score in Argentina last weekend and had to retire on the penultimate stage on day two, when a mechanical problem forced him out, it was still a pretty good event for the Norwegian. Indeed he was running comfortably in third and seemed to have the edge on BP Ford's Mikko Hirvonen, who eventually took the final place on the podium.

�I didn't want my 100th rally for Subaru to end this way, because we were going well in third position and I had a good feeling with the car. The car showed great potential, in particular on the morning stages on Saturday, and we were looking forward to the rest of the rally.

�It's a great shame, and frustrating because we have not been able to show how we are progressing with the car. It's getting better all the time. For sure, it is not perfect yet, but we have new developments coming for Sardinia which will make it better to drive and hopefully we can compete for a win. As it is we are behind just a little bit, but here the performance was very good from the start.�

Subaru World Rally Team managing director, Richard Taylor meanwhile was also buoyed by what he saw, even if Petter did have to retire.

"We were encouraged by the speed that Petter showed on Saturday and his performance confirmed what we saw in Mexico - that when the car is going well it is fast enough to challenge the pace of the leaders,� he added. �The challenge now is to make sure we can run at that sort of pace in all conditions.�


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[Rory Phoulorie]

Give Jack his jacket, Loeb is an excellent driver.

But the way that Citroen C4 is running, Subaru will have to do some magic with the Impreza to be able to beat it in a race.