Solberg predicts struggle for Subaru

The manufacturer's first ever hatchback rally car made its debut in the WRC in Greece at the end of May, but has struggled to make an impression on the front of the field since.

The Banbury-based Subaru team worked on improving performance through the summer and Solberg's team-mate Chris Atkinson finished third in Finland earlier this month, albeit more than three minutes adrift of the winner.

The Trier-based event is the Impreza WRC2008's first outing on asphalt and Solberg admits he expects it to be tough.

"We've done a lot of changes to the car to try and get traction and to try and make the car faster," he said. "We will have to see if it works and if we are fast enough.

"There's definitely more to do, more work to come in areas. The team has taken the dampers in-house which shows there is an issue, but as I say, we're working on it. We need consistency from the car for the whole rally."

Solberg refused to be drawn on what sort of result he was looking for in Germany.

"Let's start the rally and take it from there," the 2003 champion added. "If we have no problems then we can do quite well, but let's wait and see. It's not going to be easy for us, though. The weather is not looking good, it's going to rain, and we had a completely dry test."