With factory Ford drivers Petter Solberg and Jari-Matti Latvala second and third respectively on ADAC Rallye Deutschland and with Latvala taking two stage bests, it was a satisfied Ford team boss Malcolm Wilson who spoke to WRC.com.
How would you summarise your team’s performance today?
“Well I’m a lot happier than I was in Finland to be honest. The pace today has been absolutely fantastic from the two guys. The car has been great and I really class this as leading the rally. For us to be able to do this on Tarmac is a great feeling.”
Could you have been closer to Sebastien Loeb and Citroen this evening?
“There’s no question there have been a couple of things. Jari was very apprehensive about the first three or four kilometres on the first stage this morning so opted to go with the soft tyres and paid a bit of a price and that had an affect later on when it dried out because the car was quite soft. Then on stage five when he didn’t want any splits because he felt he’d been pushing too hard... but two fastest times against Sebastien is pretty impressive by everybody.”
And two fastest stage times at a time in the rally when Loeb is pushing hard...?
“Yes and particularly on his favourite surface so you can imagine what we feel about the performance of our car.”
Petter referenced a problem this morning, which we understand to have been a brake issue. What was the problem?
“Petter lost a little bit of time at the end of the stages. We changed his brake pad material so that probably cost us another 10 seconds.”
What can the team do on day two?
“I think we’re where we want to be. The pace is where we want it to be and we’re in good shape.”