Subaru 'fesses up...

[michael taylor]

have been strapped for time, but i know this was mentioned in dispatches and i indicated i'd throw it on the site, so here it is.

had a long chat with the then-director of engineering at SWRT about Chris and what has gone so horribly wrong.

this ran in the Herald-Sun a month or so ago, but i own the copyright, so thought you'd like a squiz. Oh, much more detailed version in the next issue of MOTOR.

cheers

MT

Atko still on track, Subaru insists


Subaru’s engineering team has taken the blame for Chris Atkinson’s failure to break through for his first World Rally Championship win.
The beleaguered Subaru World Rally team’s engineering director has insisted its Imprezas have been neither fast enough nor strong enough to allow Atkinson to win rallies, and also contributed heavily to a number of the Queenslander’s crashes.
“I think Chris is pretty exceptional and our poor results are certainly not his fault,” SWRT engineering director Steve Farrell insisted.
“When Chris is confident with the car he often knocks in times that at least compare with Petter (Solberg, his team mate and 2003 World Champion), often he’s quicker.
“He has driven pretty difficult cars for a couple of years. He has had a difficult introduction and I would like to think we can make it easier for him now.”
Farrell has been tasked with bringing Subaru out of the wilderness and allowing Atkinson to fulfill his undoubted talent. Subaru did not win a rally in last year’s WRC and Solberg and Atkinson could manage only sixth and tenth in the standings behind the dominant Citroens and Fords.
Atkinson joined Subaru in 2004 after dominating the 2003 Australian Rally Championship in his private Subaru WRX, only to lose the title on a technicality.
But Farrell insists the World Rally car has been too riddled with problems for Atkinson to consistently shine, and also insisted the source of the problems predated Atkinson joining Subaru in 2004.
“We were heading down the mineshaft well and truly by the time Chris got on board,” Farrell said.
“He only had a Group N car as a reference and these balance issues we had were worse than the Group N car, and he couldn’t understand that. His private car was better to drive than the WRC car.
“He said that right next door to our factory, the customer cars we built in Group N form were better to drive. Now, the WRC car is obviously faster, but it should be better to drive as well.”
All of which raises the question about why Subaru didn’t pour engineering resources into curing the problem then and there.
“To start with we didn’t quite want to believe him. What Chris was saying he was saying the same as Petter, but in a different way.
“Petter can probably drive through a lot of problems where Chris had issues right from the word go. He was at times a lot slower than Petter, so that carries less weight with engineers.
“Then he would jag a very fast stage time on a difficult stage and we go: “bloody hell”.
“I was in the midst of all that and you can understand their frustration. When we are trying to understand the problems it’s more long-term R&D, but the drivers want it next week and they get frustrated.”
So frustrated have they been that Solberg has been reduced to tears during media interviews in the service park. There have been wholesale personnel changes in the design department and the team has adopted a more back-to-basics car for the 2007 season.
“We have gone back to a rally-car front end rather than a touring-car front end. We didn’t really properly accept that rallying has a lot more considerations than circuit cars.
“Maybe our focus on aerodynamics was at the core of our problems. The priority that we might have given to certain aspects of the aerodynamics might have been disproportionate to the potential benefits.
“What happened then was that we made a car that was very difficult for the drivers to manage and it was very difficult to service.”
Those handling difficulties have put both Solberg and Atkinson off the road and out of rallies, besides making the cars slower than their rivals. Since Solberg’s 2003 win, Citroen’s Sebastien Loeb has taken every World Championship on offer, while Ford’s fast man, Marcus Gronholm remains his biggest threat.
“Because of some of the problems we had with the balance, we had to then introduce some things to work around it. Then we made a car that would always damage itself and it’s hard to recover. Each time we came into service we knew we had to throw everybody at it to get them out on time and on a number of occasions, we didn’t.”
Footage of both Solberg and Atkinson on gravel stages clearly shows the Subaru to push its front end wide far more than the Citroens and Fords, which hampers pace, precision and driver confidence. Reliability problems have dogged both drivers, too, with Atkinson robbed of a maiden win at Rally Australia in 2005 after a steering part failed.
“The drivers were at varying levels but both incredibly frustrated.
“The thing that is clear to me, when I go back through the debrief sheets from three years ago, is that we can actually read the problems we’ve now identified in the debrief notes from then.
“Quite frankly, there was not one single issue. There were 12 or 15 issues and as you sew up each of these it becomes clear.
“But we went down a path and it was wrong. I have said it to Petter and Chris a lot over the last eight months, that we were wrong and we are working to fix it.”
While that admission hasn’t helped Atkinson’s performance, it has helped morale as the Queenslander has faced a barrage of criticism in the wake of a big crash in Portugal and the resignation of co-driver, Glenn MacNeall.
“He had a lot of offs. Petter had a lot of offs. The car was difficult. It was unreliable.
His performance stands up against Petter’s very well, really,” Farrell accepted.
Perceptions are turning from Atkinson being the next big thing to Atkinson having potential still unfulfilled, while the stars of Ford and Citroen number twos, Finland’s Mikko Hirvonen and Spain’s Dani Sordo continue to rise.
“I would say that Chris has always been quicker than Dani Sordo. Even as a customer car driver, Dani had a superior car (the ageing Xsara) to what Chris had been given to drive last year,” he said.
“I think we have a line-up at least as good as anybody in the championship.
“Rallying has got more and more to be about experience, and experience plays a heavier role here than in other motorsports.
“I am delighted that Chris is still here and I can see that he has got what it takes.
“He is in the SWRT absolutely because we want him and his talent. He is not here for any other reason other than the fact that we think he is a potential world champion.”

[Factor]

Ta Michael, but my money is still on a splitting of the sheets.

[Swill]

We have gone back to a rally-car front end rather than a touring-car front end. We didn’t really properly accept that rallying has a lot more considerations than circuit cars.

well what do you know

[tortfeaser]

Thanks Michael. Good on newsltd for publishing it.

But WTF. Steve Farrell [finally] admits what spectators with half a brain have seen for yonks, and then gets the boot. What is the background of the new crew? Surely Lapworth can't have much credibility given he was running the show when they went down the Ford/Britek path of trying to build a race car for gravel instead of thinking about the basics of rallying engineering and building a car that will finish, be easy to drive and fix, and be fast (in that order).

Subaru make changes, Lapworth back as consultant.

Fri 01 Jun, 12:22 PM

The Subaru World Rally Team has confirmed that a number of changes have been made to its engineering department in a bid to 'boost the competitiveness of the current car' and 'support the longer term development of its 2008 successor'.

Although no announcement was made publicly a spokesperson confirmed to Crash.net that recent media reports are correct and that David Lapworth will return to assist the team.

Lapworth will work as a consultant on the Impreza WRC2007 project and will also help with the development of the 2008 car by assisting chief designer Christophe Chapelain. He is not however, rejoining the team on a full-time basis and he will continue in his role as technical director of Prodrive, the outfit which runs the SWRT in the WRC.

Graham Moore meanwhile will join the SWRT on a short term basis, around 4-5 months, as a chief rally engineer for the Impreza WRC2007. He will be focusing on maximising the performance of the current car.

There have also been a few other changes and as a result Steve Farrell, SWRT's director of engineering, has decided to leave the team with immediate effect.

Subaru have had a disappointing season thus far this year and while there is no doubt the Impreza WRC2007 has shown flashes of potential, the Banbury-based outfit is still struggling to match Citroen and Ford.

For the record, the changes follow on from a number of ones made in August last year, which included the appointment of Chapelain and which were then said to have been made to put a 'greater emphasis on engineering'.

[Lyndall]

Thanks for posting your article here on the forum MT. More honest relevations from Steve Farrell than I'd expect, tho probably didn't have any choice given how obvious the problems are.

If I were Chris, I'd stick your article on my fridge door to re-read it every morning and night to regain my confidence. Oh ... and put a photo of Farrell etc. on my dart board.

I think it will take a while for the luvin feeling to come back - in many regards.

[monk]

good to hear they are confessing up. pity the dates are wrong. Chris was competing in the suzuki in 03 and his semi private WRX in the ARC in 04. Joined the WRC in 05...

[michael taylor]

must be old. can't even remember what year lyndall and i drove with ralliart...

[Lyndall]

You are old, but alas will always be a year younger than me.

2004 was the Year of the Auto Magna (...and possibly the first and last year of a 4 car team from Mitsubishi Ralliart Australia).