Ostberg targets more podiums

Rally Sweden sensation Mads Ostberg says he hopes his shock second-place finish in Scandinavia last week won’t be a one-off.

However, he conceded that he would find it hard to replicate his performance when the world championship resumes in Mexico next month, an event he has never tackled before.

Ostberg, driving a semi-works Ford Fiesta RS WRC, led for one and a half days of the snow event alongside Swedish co-driver Jonas Andersson before slipping behind factory Ford pilot Mikko Hirvonen.

Nevertheless Ostberg continued to fight and was only 4.9 seconds behind Hirvonen starting the rally-closing Power Stage on Sunday.

“I definitely hope it won’t be my last podium finish and hopefully not the last time I set some pressure on Mikko either,” said the 23-year-old Ostberg. “It’s been good this weekend and I really enjoyed the Fiesta. It’s possible to do some good results during the whole of the season but we are doing some rallies this year that we haven’t done before. We feel quite confident in ourselves, in the car and in our team so I hope we can fight for good positions on the next events as well but I can’t hope for the same thing in Mexico.”

“We go there to learn about the rally and more about the car on gravel and we will see on the next events after that when we come to more familiar ground when I hope it will be possible to do some good results again.”

Ostberg, a former protégé of fellow Norwegian Petter Solberg, has competed regularly in the WRC since 2007 but rarely made an impression driving uncompetitive Subaru Imprezas.

He currently has a nine-round deal to drive for the Ford-blessed M-Sport team but is hopeful of securing the finds to see out the entire 13-event season.