Subaru score points in Germany (From Banbury Cake)

Subaru score points in Germany

11:10am Monday 18th August 2008

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AFTER three days, nineteen stages and 352 kilometres of competition on the ADAC Rallye Deutschland, Banbury's Subaru World Rally Team successfully completed its asphalt debut with the new Impreza WRC2008, both cars finishing firmly within the points.

The leaderboard remained static since the end of the final day's stages, meaning Petter Solberg and Phil Mills retained fifth place and team mates Chris Atkinson and Stéphane Prévot claimed sixth, positions they held since the mid-point.

Crucially, the team were able to learn a great deal about the performance of the new Impreza on tarmac and are now in a much better position ahead of the two remaining tarmac rallies, rounds 12 and 13 in Spain and Corsica.

David Lapworth, Subaru World Rally Team technical director, said: "We came here with very little experience of the car on tarmac, yet Petter and Chris have scored good points, and we now have a very clear direction for our continued asphalt development."

Solberg and Mills had a completely trouble-free run, working themselves into the comfortable fifth position overall that they maintained to the finish. Feeling increasingly confident aboard their number five Impreza, true to form they kept pushing to the very end of the rally, recording the third fastest stage time on the day's penultimate test and setting the equal fastest time on the final stage.

Solberg said: "We had no problems at all this weekend which is very good. The very positive thing is that things have improved through the rally, you know.

"We started with OK speed, and it got better through the rally. You have to remember we've only done two days' testing with the car, so I'm really very happy with it. I think we've found the direction we need to get the maximum from the car, so it's good."

Atkinson and Prévot closely shadowed their team mates all weekend, and consolidated their sixth position overall to add more valuable points to their season tally. Despite losing time with a stall at the start line of the day's opener and suffering damaged rear suspension three kilometres into the test, the duo had earned a sufficiently comfortable gap to stay ahead of the pursuing crews.

The rally was won by Citroen's Sebastien Loeb. The next event is in New Zealand from August 28-31.

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