Roy praises MINI effort

Campbell Roy, the MINI WRC Team’s sporting manager, has talked of the "fantastic effort" that has gone into the squad’s World Rally Championship debut in Sardinia this week.

MINI will run its John Cooper Works WRC in competition for the first time on Rally d’Italia Sardegna with Kris Meeke and Dani Sordo at the wheel of the two factory machines.

Roy told Wrc.com: “The guys have been working really long hours to get everything ready to come here so it’s a fantastic effort to get here. We’re now looking forward to seeing where we are against a benchmark. We can do all the testing in the world really but at the end of the day, until we get out on the same stages as Ford and Citroen, we don’t know where we are. Only then can we make some decisions and set some objectives and targets going forward.”

MINI is embarking on a six-event world championship campaign in 2011 ahead of a full assault on the series next year.

“The target really is looking at 2012 so we need to get the team fine-tuned and improve as the year goes on,” Roy continued. “The drivers have been out of [competition] for a long while, it’s a new team, a new car so we can’t raise expectations hugely at the moment. But at the end of the year we’ll be looking to 2012 and a full championship.”

Roy, a friend and former business manager of the late Colin McRae, joined the Prodrive-run MINI organisation earlier this year having recently devoted his energies to managing the Colin McRae Vision charity.

“I’ve obviously been involved in rallying for a lot of years with Colin and the time felt right,” said Scotsman Roy. “It was an opportunity that came up that I couldn’t really turn down. It’s an exciting project, an iconic name that will hopefully bring [more] excitement and adrenalin to championship.”