Burns ready to take risks in Finland

The Subaru ace comes to Finland as one of the pre-event favourites. Burns loves the fast, flowing stages of the event and has targeted outright victory as his sole aim.

His last win came on the 2000 Rally of Great Britain WRC finale and the current season has been punctuated by five non-finishes from eight starts, leaving him 25 points adrift of title-leader Tommi Makinen with six events to go.

Speaking at the final shakedown test for the Rally of Finland, Burns said: "The championship isn't out of the window yet, but it's not my main priority at the moment. I want to win this rally and I want to win more rallies before the end of the season. I haven't won since last November, so I want a victory. The championship will take care of itself."

Despite putting his title aspirations on the back-burner, Burns says the pressure is still very much on.

"Believe me, there's a lot of pressure," he said. "Subaru wants to win a rally; I want to win a rally. We're certainly not desperate, because that doesn't help anybody, but we want this win."

Burns crashed out of last year's event while challenging eventual winner Marcus Gronholm, but he says his approach will not change this time around.

"You have to take risks on this event or you don't even get into the points," he said. "I love fast rallies and I love all the fast stages on the world championship.

"The conditions at the moment are very fast. It's damp on the surface, which speeds them up a little by firming the surface up. But if it gets properly wet, then obviously it will slow down, and if it gets a little drier, that will make it slippier too. Some of the stages second time around will be a lot trickier."

Burns believes that despite the event being the sole preserve of the Finns for nearly a decade, the list of potential winners is split between the local heroes and the non-Scandinavian contingent.

"Last year, Marcus Gronholm had things made fairly easy for him," he said. "This time around, I think there are probably half a dozen drivers with a real chance of winning. Marcus, Harri (Rovanpera), Tommi, myself, Colin (McRae) and Carlos (Sainz) are all in with a good chance."

He also played down the near-mythical status enjoyed by the Finns on their home event.

"You might say they have an advantage in the same way that Colin and I have a small advantage on the Rally GB, but it's not a massive one and it's getting less and less," he explained. "We all come into it with the same sort of chances we had last year and I know I'm capable of winning."

Burns also refused to completely refute rumours that he is in the frame for a switch to Peugeot next year. The Englishman has been linked to a big-money move to the French marque, which has also suffered an up-and-down 2001 season so far.

"Others seem to be talking about it a lot more than me," he said. "It's the same situation we had last year, when I was linked to Peugeot back then too. You can never say what might happen in the future, but it's all just speculation."