Richards wants results with new car

The former world champions haven't won a rally for more than two years, and Richards has returned to the squad in a bid to improve their fortunes.

"You can't hide from the facts in these situations," Richards said on the main stage at the Autosport International show. "Things have to change.

"From a team that won half a dozen world championships and would regularly take half a dozen wins a year, we've not won anything for a couple of years."

Richards admitted that Subaru have been hindered by not introducing a new car earlier, and he believes that the car will be a significant step forward once it competes for the first time.

"Being fair about it, the car we run at the moment is five years old in its basic design," he added. "We anticipated this new car would have come a long time before it did.

"But we will have the new car later this season and then we won't have any excuses. The new car has been designed from the ground up over a year ago, and it incorporates all the ideas we wanted to put in."

The Prodrive boss is also pleased with the progress the new car is making in testing, with Subaru's new test driver Markko Martin working on its development.

"So far testing is going very well," he said. "Markko is very pleased with the results, and we'll show the car in public in the next few months, then people will see it for real in the WRC before the end of the season."