Ford step up asphalt efforts

BP Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team principal Malcolm Wilson says the team is working as hard as ever in an effort to break the Citroen team’s stranglehold on asphalt rounds of the World Rally Championship.

The French firm - and Sebastien Loeb - has won every traditional sealed-surface round of the series since 2004, with Marcus Gronholm’s success on a bone dry 2006 Monte Carlo Rally the Blue Oval’s only success with the current generation of Focus.

Ford team leader Mikko Hirvonen will tackle this weekend’s Serbia Rally as the latest stage of the firm’s preparations for the next round of the WRC, next month’s Rally Bulgaria.

“We’re hoping the work we’re doing for Bulgaria will get us closer than ever to them [Citroen] on Tarmac,” said Wilson. “Look at what we did on the superspecial in Portugal. When did we ever win a Tarmac superspecial? We scrubbed the tyres, tweaked the suspension and made it work for that stage. We’ve got this Serbia Rally coming up and we’ll be working hard on that to make that work for the team. We always felt we could be competitive on gravel, so we said okay, let’s find the extra gear on asphalt - that’s what we’re doing here.”

Wilson added that the Serbian event appeared to reflect the conditions in Bulgaria, adding: “We’ve heard that the surface is going to be quite mixed in Bulgaria. One day will be quite loose and pot-holed, but the other day will be smoother - those are the kind of roads Mikko will be driving in Serbia.”

Never having won on asphalt, Hirvonen admitted beating Loeb or his fellow Citroen Total World Rally Team driver Dani Sordo on one of the four asphalt rounds to come would be difficult.

The Finn said: “We are trying to find something new for the car. I hope we can find some more speed and then fight for the podium, of course the dream is the win - but, I don’t know, maybe that’s a bit optimistic.”

Hirvonen tested the Focus RS WRC 09 for three days on asphalt in Britain last month.

“That time in the car helped,” Hirvonen continued, “and I’m sure the event in Serbia will be good as well. After that there’s more testing to come, we have four days in Spain on asphalt as well. We’re certainly putting the work in to find something for the Tarmac.”