Ostberg chasing more WRC podiums

Ford Fiesta RS WRC driver Mads Ostberg says his second FIA World Rally Championship podium in succession has left him hungry for more top-three results this year.

Ostberg missed the season-opening Rallye Monte-Carlo, but backed up his second place on November’s Wales Rally GB with third on last week’s Rally Sweden. The Norwegian will tackle all the remaining rounds of this year’s World Rally Championship powered by Nokia except for Rally New Zealand - but he says he hasn’t given up on flying to Auckland just yet.

“It was great to get that result in Sweden,” said Ostberg. “I have done a few snow rallies before the start [of Rally Sweden], so I was quite well prepared. I had hoped we might have been able to go one better than our second place in Sweden last year, but we lost touch with Jari-Matti [Latvala] and Mikko [Hirvonen] on the first day and were left to fight with Petter [Solberg] for third.

“I want more podiums on more events this year. We are going back to some of the events for the second time and that’s going to help me a lot, but it’s never going to be easy going up against the big four drivers.

“We’ve got a good programme for this year, missing New Zealand at the moment. But, who knows? If we make some more podiums then we might be able to find some more backing to go there as well - that would certainly be my aim.”