Subaru's
Chris Atkinson has set his sights on taking his maiden win in the WRC during the second half of the season, which gets underway in less than two weeks time with the Rally Finland.
The Aussie enjoyed a strong first half of the year, taking four rostrum finishes in total, including two runners-up spots in Mexico and Argentina. While the final two rounds in Greece and Turkey prior to the summer break didn't go to plan, Chris is still well placed in the drivers' championship.
Indeed he has 31 points on the board - 11 more than his team-mate and 2003 World Rally champion
Petter Solberg and only 3 points less than
BP Ford Abu Dhabi 'works' driver
Jari-Matti Latvala, who is third.
"We want to aim as high as we can [in the second half of the year]. We want to see if we can win with this new car," he told
Crash.net Radio in an exclusive interview at the recent Goodwood Festival of Speed.
"I haven't won an event in the World Rally Championship yet. I have had a few podiums - some second places and some third places - and now I want to make the next step. Hopefully this is the car that will allow me to do it."
Asked how work is going with the all-new Impreza WRC2008, he added that the Banbury-based outfit has made more progress since the Rally of Turkey back in June.
"It is good. Everything is coming along well. Obviously we brought it out early. But we have done a lot of development over the last couple of months while we have had the time off. We are looking forward to getting into the second half of the year," he continued.
"We are going to push as hard as we can straight away in Finland. We are going to go for it and see if we have got the speed. Obviously Mikko [Hirvonen], Jari-Matti [Latvala] and Sebastien [Loeb] are going to be very, very fast there and it is going to be hard to beat them. But if we can win some stages it will be encouraging."
