Symtech: a fantastic result to win the title in just our third season

After having clinched an outstanding record of four consecutive PWRC wins, Hayden Paddon and Symtech Racing secured the 2011 Production Car World Rally Championship title in Australia: a well-deserved reward for all the hard work done by the Belgian team in the past years. Thanks to this great result, Symtech Racing is now one of the few Belgian teams to have won an FIA world title.

Based in Grobbendonk (Belgium), Symtech Racing was founded two and a half years ago and incorporates the heritage of the well-known Syms Europe team: an outfit that had already distinguished itself in many ways during previous editions of the PWRC. During its first year, Symtech Racing was running rally cars for Subaru Poland in an official programme along with Lada racing cars in the World Touring Car Championship. In 2010 the team entered the Super 2000 World Rally Championship, preparing and running a Ford Fiesta S2000. Hopes were high on this new adventure but an accident on the second round of the season brought their quest for glory to a halt. The team collected a few other good results that year, winning the Rally Poland with a Group N car, although the main attention was given to developing and fine-tuning a new 2010 version of their own Subaru Impreza Group N car.

Wim De Boeck commented: "Everything we do is done on our own, with our own means in our own offices. The car is entirely developed and prepared by us thanks to our team of experts. We also work closely together with our suppliers in order to have the best possible equipment and make the car as reliable and fast as possible. The Subaru Impreza STR10 we’ve used this year is one of the best Group N cars that can be found on the market and Hayden’s fantastic performance has confirmed this. After each rally, we have been carefully checking the car and replacing whatever parts have been damaged. For this reason we always had a perfect car at every rally start. The excellent collaboration we have enjoyed with Hayden this year has enabled us to continuously improve the overall set-up of the car. He is a great driver, he is very fast and he makes very few mistakes. On top of that, he has a good technical background and is very ambitious. In a word, he has everything needed to become a really top driver!"

Dirk Van der Sluys commented: "It’s a fantastic result to win the title in just our third season. Now we are looking ahead: there are still two PWRC rounds left to go in Spain and in the UK. Our aim is not only to win but also to start working on our projects for next year. We will have a busy month but we must also find a moment to properly celebrate this success with all the team. I want to thank everyone all for the hard work that they have done so far."

The next PWRC round will be the Rally Spain which will get underway from 20 to 23 October.