Subaru keen to get back in the groove

Rally Ireland

Monday, November 12, 2007

By Sammy Hamill

It is the team that took Colin McRae, Richard Burns and Petter Solberg to the World Rally Championship.

It is a car which spawned countless thousands of wannabes in their road-going replicas.

But Prodrive and the Subaru Impreza have fallen from grace.

They have not won a World championship rally for two years and there is little prospect of them ending that dismal run on Rally Ireland.

Prodrive is the English company, founded by David Richards, which was charged by Subaru to develop and build a winning rally car. And they were hugely successful for year after year, bringing Britain its two World champions in McRae and Burns.

When Norwegian Solberg added his name to the title roll of honour in 2003, it seemed they couldn't stop winning.

Nowhere more so than here in Ireland where the World championship machines were re-cycled into privateer hands for the likes of Bertie Fisher, Kenny McKinstry, Andrew Nesbitt and Derek McGarrity to carry on the winning tradition.

Even this year, Eugene Donnelly drove a Subaru to success in the Irish Tarmac championship. But, perhaps tellingly, that is the only championship to have been won by the S12 version of the WRC Impreza.

However, with Solberg and his Aussie team-mate Chris Atkinson struggling in the wake of the Citroens and Fords, the crunch appears to have come in Subaru's home round of the World series, Rally Japan, where humiliatingly none of their cars completed the full distance of the event.

Former World championship-winning co-driver Richards, who as well as being chairman of Prodrive, has irons in many other fires. He recently headed up the consortium which bought Aston Martin from Ford; he's deeply involved in creating the newest Formula One team and he is the rights holder for the global television coverage of the World Rally Championship.

But, after a meeting with the head of Subaru's parent company, Ikuo Mori, during his visit to Rally Japan, it appears Richards is on the verge to going back to his roots with the rally team and has vowed to get tough in a bid to turn their fortunes around.

He is even contemplating taking charge again himself.

"This is about clear leadership and a demonstrable plan enforced from the top down," he said. "Everybody, and I mean everybody, will comply with this plan.

"I'm not having anybody in this team with individual agendas. If that means I have to get in there and bang heads together then I'll do just that. I will be very, very forceful in this. I don't care about breaking a few eggs."

Whether this comments are aimed at specific individuals, including team leader Solberg, isn't clear but it is known that the 2003 champion isn't happy with the team - nor are they happy with him.

He and Atkinson, along with Spaniard Xavier Pons, come to Ireland on a face-saving exercise but with little prospect of challenging the likes of Sebastien Loeb and Marcus Gronholm.

They, and Richards, are pinning their hopes on the newest version of the Impreza, the S14, but it is just beginning its trials with talk of Ulsterman Kris Meeke being recruited as test and development driver.