The Subaru World Rally Team achieved its aim of getting both Impreza WRCs into the top six on Rallye Monte Carlo, the opening round of the 2007 WRC season. Chris Atkinson was one of the stars of the event, and snatched fourth place from Ford’s Mikko Hirvonen on the final stage of the event, which was a televised superspecial around half of the Monaco Grand Prix circuit. Chris and co-driver Glenn Macneall set three fastest stage times during the rally and the young Australian driver felt that he had found a whole new level of performance on asphalt.
Petter Solberg and Phil Mills finished a solid sixth, equaling their personal best finish on the rally, and the event brought plenty of positives for the team. The new relationship with tyre supplier BFGoodrich is progressing well and both Impreza WRC2006s were reliable throughout the event, which bodes well for the two snow rallies in Sweden and Norway next month. Petter Solberg (6th) “Our position is okay and overall I am very happy with this rally. It has been a tough weekend and the time we lost on the long opening stage on Friday really hurt our chances of getting any higher up the order. Don’t forget that we have also been learning more about how the BFGoodrich tyres work with our car this weekend. Chris has gone particularly well and it has been a good team effort. The atmosphere on this rally has been incredible. The Monaco Superspecial was good fun, really good fun, the stage was very impressive and I really hope the people here enjoyed watching it as much as we did driving! These stages are all about putting on a good show I hope we can do something similar on other rallies in the future. â€
Chris Atkinson (4th) “Getting fourth place back from Mikko on the last stage of the rally is a massive result for us. To be fighting like this on asphalt is so encouraging for the team. It was fantastic to do it in front of so many people and in this setting. I was just trying to be quick and neat rather than spectacular. I think this is one of the best rallies we’ve ever had. It feels like we’ve reached a new level on asphalt and the team is coming along very well. Our next stop is Sweden and we’ll be aiming for some more points there. â€
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