WRC : Atkinson quatrième en Nouvelle Zélande
Once again, Chris Atkinson shows himself the most successful of both official Subaru drivers by dominating Peter Solberg, who ends seventh. Almost at home (at least on his continent), the Australian acquired this fourth place after a tough duel Latvala. Outstripped in the evening of the second day, Chris decreased gradually the gap throughout the last stage, to overtake his opponent and lead him by two seconds before the super test in which he will show himself the fastest. Subaru still suffers from problems of setting, but remains at the feet of the podium, what is not already so bad, if considered the extremely high level of the Citroën vs Ford battle.
Rallye raid- Mitsubishi dominates in Por Las Pampas
Luc Alphand and Gilles Picard have dominated the Por Las Pampas Rally, not letting their contenders believe that they would be able to carch them, from the first stage untill the finsih line. A very good test in race conditions before the Rally Dakar...
WRC- Solberg third in Greece Rally
For the first time this season, Peter Solberg and Chirs Atkinson 's Impreza showed as performing as the Ford and Citroën. Which results in a superb podium for the norvegian, obtained on the track, after the second place won on the Ford penalty in Mexico. .

After getting a little bit lost in the settings of the car during the last two WRC races (which is normal at this stage of development of a new car), Subaru made a giant step forward last week-end in Greece. The first day sow a stunning Atkinson winning two stages, and leading the rally for most of the day, before to slip to sixth place on a bad tires choice. In the mean time, Solberg won one stage, and took the second place overall. Since their first show off, the new Impreza 2007 had never showed so performing.

As usual in the Acropolis Rally, the second day would bring its bunch of small damages. nevertheless, Solberg fought hardly with Loeb for the 2nd place. The Subaru driver won two stages, but the frenchman finally ended the day on the second step of the podium. Atkinson kept his sixth place.

Despite being desappointed after having lost the seond place, Solberg decided to secure his result for the final day : he didn't take any risk, and tried to control his contenders to save his third place. However, the result is brilliant, and Subaru showed that the car is in great progress.

Much more details on Subaru World Racing Team website : www.swrt.com
03 / 04 / 2007 - WRC : Rally of Portugal
After a brillant first race in Mexico - but without real achievement, despite four SS victories - the whole Subaru team aimed a strong result in Portugal. With Solberg's second place, obtained thanks to a penalty applied to Gronholm and Hirvonen, the goal is fully reached.

Finally, the Impreza 2007 will have obtained a podium for its second ever WRC race. Gronholm and Hirvonen's Ford let their places to Solberg (previously 4th overall) and Sordo, after having been awarded a five minutes penalty for a non conform rear window. An unexpected result for the Subaru's second race, even if the car had shown great abilities.

While the  rallye was dominated by Loeb and Gronholm, Solberg fought for third place against Hirvonen for a long time. On the other hand, Atkinson retired in the second day after a crash in SS 10. Solberg saved a lot of time on Hirvonen during the second day after a tough fight that brought him close to the podium, but had been dominated by the Focus in the last stage, and suffered from turbo troubles in the end of the day, to eventually finish fourth overall. Subaru's engineers keep testing severall technical options, more or less efficient, but the most important remains to get informations, while scoring big points.

The goal was definitely reached on sunday evening, even before Ford and steward's surprise gift !

At Subaru, everyone keeps motivated ans confident before Argentina rally, eventhough tyhere's still a lot of work to do on the car to find the best balance. 
12/03/2007 - WRC
Convincing first race of the new Subaru in Mexico 
The new Subaru 2007 made their debuts in Mexico last week-end, in the hands of Petter Solberg and Chris Atkinson. The Rally world was looking forward to checking the performance of the cars supposed to bring Subaru back to its usual rank, before the potential launching of a brand new car in 2008. And the less we can say is that the car is clearly well born, even though the final result does not reflects its full potential.

Petter Solberg actually created a stunning surprise, by winning the three first stages. Atkinson always followed him closely, and eventually finished second of the day, with his own stage win. Even if the car needs some more work to be completely setted up, the Impreza showed clearly that it was already able to fight in the top ranks. Unfortunately, Solberg would have to give up later, as a "mano a mano" fight just began versus a reacting Sebastien Loëb. A stone damaged the oil cooler, and created an oil leak causing his retirement.

During the second day Atkinson decided to test some different settings on the car, but they finally looked less performing. With an intermittent power loss at mid race, Chris flipped to fifth place, and maintained this position untill the end of the rally.

This top five finish achieves the team's pre event target, even if some desappointement could be noticed in Richard Taylor's comments - on swrt.com- after the race : “Not a perfect result, but an excellent demonstration of the performance potential of the new car. It’s at a level we’re really pleased with, and this weekend Petter and Chris have both shown that we’ve got podium pace. Of course we’ve got some fine tuning to do, which is what always expected, but I think we can expect stronger results in the rest of the season.”
As generally admitted by the team's crew, Subaru, will obviously need three or four races to be fully competitive with this new car, what seems normal, as it as been developped in a very short delay. . 
03 / 05 / 07 : WRC
The new Subaru Impreza S 12 B 2007 will show off for the first time next week-end, with BOS dampers

Paper and web magazines has already related the fact that the new Subaru Impreza WRC, that will enter its first race next week-end in Mexico, will feature BOS dampers. That we confirm hereby.

Subaru has officially presented its new weapon last friday, march 2nd, but the pictures of the car during a test session in Sardinia had been previously launched on the internet, and published by many magazines. In the co driver's seat, you could see Olivier Bossard himself... 

This so expected version of the Impreza holds all the hopes of the japanese brand, to stay close to Ford and Citroën this season, before the launching of a brand new car in 2008. Nevertheless, Subaru not only brought some small evolution to the former car, but made really big changes, as admitted by engineering director, Steve Farell on SRWT's website :
"The targets were to produce a car that has a more responsive front end with better traction and more balanced tyre wear, particularly on longer stages. To achieve that, we have applied a different philosophy into areas such as weight distribution, suspension geometry and differential set-ups. We also have new dampers to improve road-holding and traction".

Those technical improvements seem to have been validated during the tests in Sardinia, as the S 12 B will thus make his debuts in Mexico in the hands of Petter Solberg and Chris Atkinson. Subaru doesn't look to victory yet, but plans to work hard, in order to compete for podiums as soon as possible. 

Some links to visit : 
Subaru World Rallye Team (check the pictures gallery) :
www.swrt.com
Action shots in Sardinia : 
http://www.sportautomoto.it/News.asp?Type=1&id=6464
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