Atkinson: best is yet to come

Chris Atkinson reckons his fifth place finish on ADAC Rallye Deutschland is the start of even better things to come for WRC Team MINI Portugal.

Atkinson, from Australia, was making his debut for the Motorsport Italia-run team on the all-asphalt round of the FIA World Rally Championship, which finished in Trier on Sunday afternoon.

The Australian, a former factory Subaru driver and semi-works Citroen pilot, hadn’t driven his MINI John Cooper Works WRC in competition before and was tackling a sealed-surface round of the global series for the first time since 2008.

“This result has given us a good base to work from so big thanks to the team who have done a fantastic job all weekend,” said Atkinson. “Our strategy was to get through a tricky rally without making any mistakes and it paid off. We can start fighting a bit higher up now and start moving forward.”

While Atkinson finished a strong fifth, team-mate Paulo Nobre was forced to withdraw on Saturday and return to his native Brazil for family reasons. He had dropped out of contention when he retired on day one following an accident.