Oliveira’s Australian run to help MINI

Daniel Oliveira’s participation on Rally Australia will make MINI’s John Cooper Works WRC a better car according to Brazil World Rally Team’s Paul Howarth.

BWRT, a newcomer to the World Rally Championship in 2011, is managed by Prodrive, the company responsible for running the factory MINI squad in the global series.

With MINI’s works outfit not competing on the New South Wales rally, Oliveira has been charged with accumulating vital data for the emerging project.

“Our factory squad is competing on limited events this year so for us to come to Australia with Daniel is a huge plus for all MINI WRC teams,” said Howarth, the manager of BWRT. “It’s always tough for both driver and team heading into a brand new event but if Rally Australia revisits the Coffs Coast region we will be prepared and have a decent grasp on what to expect.”

Howarth continued: “This event has also allowed us to test a few things on the MINI WRC and Daniel is doing a great job in gaining as much mileage as possible. This helps his own development as a driver as well as providing the team back at Prodrive with vital data from a mixture of conditions.”

After 20 stages, Oliveira is 23rd overall following a costly delay on stage 13 when he got stuck off the road for more than 12 minutes.

“Saturday’s conditions were much better than Friday,” said Oliveira. “The roads were pretty dry but there were still some very tricky places, particularly in the corners under the trees where the road remained quite damp. We had a good start until stage 13 where, after passing through a small bridge, the damp wood gave very little grip. The car was not damaged but we got stuck in a ditch for several minutes.”

“For the second loop we had the car fully checked and we drove well and had no problem,” said Oliveira. “I’m really happy since I drove many kilometres and that gives me confidence.”