Subaru’s Chris Atkinson and his co-driver Stephane Prevot completed Rally Finland in fourth place today. On only his fourth attempt at the notoriously tricky event, the 27-year-old Australian got off to an excellent start when he set the fastest time on Thursday’s first stage and kept a consistent and rapid pace for the rest of the event. The Subaru team’s newest signings Xevi Pons and Xevi Amigo finished sixth overall after a remarkable team debut in their Impreza WRC2007 – a car they had never driven competitively before this weekend.

Subaru World Rally Team managing director, Richard Taylor: “Chris has done a superb job for the team today, and his fourth place is well deserved. His objective for the leg was to defend his position and get the car to the finish and he did exactly what was required. Chris can be very happy with his performance in Finland; he has driven consistently, set a fastest time and hasn’t put a foot wrong all weekend. Xevi should also be encouraged by what he has achieved. Before this rally he had tested the car on gravel for only two days, so sixth overall is a very good result and a strong indication of his potential. Thanks to 19-year-old Mads Ostberg there were three Subaru Imprezas in the top eight, and I’d like to congratulate him for this achievement and on scoring his first World Rally Championship points.”

Car Number 8
Chris Atkinson: “We just tried to keep the pace of the car right through the weekend. To be able to do those times for the first day and a half was great, and let’s hope we can continue it for the rest of the year. The car is performing well on tarmac at the moment, so we’re confident we can continue this pace in Germany. I’m pleased with the way we have gone this weekend, and think it is encouraging for the team.”

Car Number 17
Xavier Pons: “It feels great to have completed my first rally with the Subaru World Rally Team, and I am very happy. I have a good working relationship with Xavier Amigo which is getting stronger the more we drive the car, and I am fitting in to the team well. Sixth place is very encouraging, and with the kilometres we have covered in the last three legs here I am feeling confident for Germany. Apart from SS8 when we ran slightly off the road and damaged the spoiler, it has been a good weekend for me with no real problems.”

BFGoodrich
Matthieu Bonardel, BFGoodrich Rally Technician: “To the contrary of the cars and drivers, Finland is a relatively easy one for BFGoodrich. The rally is extremely technical, but we saw that the tyres gave the drivers confidence over the jumps here which is important, and we had no punctures. We are of course happy for Chris and Xavier and their performances today. Looking to Germany, tyre selection becomes much more critical so we have a lot of tricky decisions to make before then, but we hope we make the right ones and enable the Subaru World Rally Team to take another step forward there.”

The Next Event

The next round of the WRC is Rallye Deutschland, which starts in only 12 days time. The tenth round in the series is an asphalt rally but is certainly not a conventional sealed-surface event. Based in the city of Trier, the route takes in a wide variety of conditions, from fast and narrow vineyard roads in the Mosel region, to the notoriously rough broken concrete tracks of the Baumholder military ranges. Leg one starts on Friday 17 August.