Germany - Subaru World Rally Team - FinishThe shortest leg of the rally, Sunday offered the drivers a combination of both new and old. With a return to the Mosel vineyard stages of Dhrontal and Moselwein, the routes were the same as those used in 2006, albeit with small
changes to sections of the road surface, which altered grip characteristics. On the other hand, the super special Circus Maximus Trier was an entirely new stage through the cobbled and narrow streets of central Trier.
Today's weather was dry all day on the stages, although there were a few showers in the service park. This morning was cool, starting at 14 degrees Celsius, and warmed up mid-morning to a high of 22 degrees Celsius air and 25 degrees Celsius road temperature.
Petter Solberg finished sixth in Rally Germany today, claiming three points in the FIA championship for drivers and four in the manufacturers' contest. After a difficult start to the rally, Solberg ended the event in excellent form, and traded times with the quickest drivers on the day's five stages.
Chris Atkinson and Xevi Pons got off to great starts today, but later retired from the event; Pons with a broken engine, Atkinson with accident damage. Under Superally regulations, however, Atkinson was still classified in 15th place and collected one more manufacturers' point for Subaru.
The eleventh round of the 2007 World Rally Championship is Rally New Zealand, which starts in less that two weeks' time from the city of Hamilton.
A classic drivers' rally, the stunning gravel roads in New Zealand are like rollercoasters that carve through the lush green countryside of the North Island. Subaru has enjoyed considerable success on the event, with Petter Solberg claiming a momentous victory there in 2004. Leg one begins on Friday 31 August.
Team Managing Director Richard Taylor
"Looking at this weekend as a whole, it has been a positive rally. The overall results don't reflect the improvements in the cars, but of course our stage times have been very encouraging. Chris put in some great performances including three stage wins. Today we have got the car right for Petter and he too has been able to produce good pace. Xevi had a strong weekend on his first asphalt rally with the Subaru World Rally Team, lying within his target of top eight overall, and it was unfortunate that he was unable to complete the event due to engine troubles. We can certainly go on to the following three asphalt rallies confident that we can be very competitive there. It's a reflection of all the hard team work that we've been doing over the last couple of months, and overall we can come away from this weekend with a positive feeling and look forward to the rest of the season."
BFGoodrich representative Didier Martin
"Subaru was the only team to have nominated and used the full range of asphalt tyres on Rally Germany, from the g-Force Profiler 0+ (soft) to the g-Force profiler 2+ (hard). And with three stage wins from Chris on three different compounds we are pleased with the performance of the Subaru/BFGoodrich combination. The performance also confirms the team's progress on asphalt as seen on Rally Monte Carlo. We have three days of testing planned in September and are looking forward to the forthcoming asphalt rallies in Spain, Corsica and Ireland."
Source Subaru World Rally Team
