Wilson: we’re ready for Germany

Ford team principal Malcolm Wilson is confident the British-based squad can bounce back on Rallye Deutschland next week, after its last outing on asphalt.

The Ford team arrives in Trier knowing that Citroen and Sebastien Loeb have never been beaten on the German event - and that, last time out on asphalt, the Focus RS WRC suffered its heaviest defeat ever to the C4 WRC. That, as far as Wilson is concerned, is history.

The team is adding another two days to its four-day test ahead of the ninth round of the World Rally Championship - and Wilson says there are more improvements to come.

“Look where we were in the rally before Finland and we’ve taken a big step,” said Wilson. “After Bulgaria, we collected a lot of data to see where we were losing the time and how we were losing it. We’ve pulled all of that performance data together and we’ve found a direction.”

Wilson added that the high-altitude element of Rally Bulgaria didn’t help the Focus, a World Rally Car which struggles in thinner air, which is not going to be a factor next week. The Cumbrian admitted, however, that the Bulgaria result hurt the whole team.

“As you can imagine I don’t like losing, that’s me,” he said. “I’ve got the pressure but I don’t think about it like that. I just know we have to get back as a company. For sure there’s pressure from Ford but there’s nobody that knows more than me that we have to get back on track. We’ll do that: we’re strong enough as a company and we’ve got a great team of people.

“We know we’ve made an improvement, but we know we can make another improvement. And we’ll be pushing like hell to get it done in time for Germany. It’s a combination of things. I’m not going to go into all the detail but we’ve looked at as many aspects of the car as we could. It’s not one particular thing. I suppose where the improvements have come from are relating to engine and suspension.”