Subaru admit they need more speed

Subaru's World Rally drivers have admitted the team still have a lot of work to do on their new car before they can compete with the likes of Ford and Citroen

Steven English Aug 21, 2008, 6:02 PM

The new Impreza impressed on its debut in the Acropolis Rally in June but Petter Solberg and Chris Atkinson have still not been able to compete with their rival Ford and Citroen drivers for victories in the three events since.

Looking ahead to next weekend's Rally New Zealand, Atkinson says Subaru need to find more pace if they are to challenge.

"I'm really looking forward to New Zealand but we need to find a little more speed if we're going to compete with the likes of Seb (Loeb), Mikko (Hirvonen), and Jari-Matti (Latvala)," he said. "We have some good ideas from Finland so if everything works out, I think we could be strong there."

Solberg added: "At the end of Germany I was feeling really good, it was a definite step forward. But now we are back to gravel so it's totally different, so we'll work on what we had in Finland and see where we go from there.

"I hope we can keep the same feeling from Germany and then I think we'll be quite strong."