5,000 kilometers on snow ice gravel mud from 20 degrees below to 40 above breakneck speed every meter of the way the teams and drivers wring every last scrap of performance out of their million euro cars walking a knife edge between overcautious and over the edge this is what it takes to become World Rally champions but for one top team this year is not just going to be a battle for glory they face a bike I survived [Music] [Music] [Music] the World Rally Championship is big money motorsports second only to Formula One the car manufacturers who spent tens of millions to take part only the winners really see the benefits three out of six big-name manufacturers pulled out of the sport last year song are now wondering if Subaru could be next the team has enjoyed enormous success in the past but it's three years since their last championship title and the pressure for success is now greater than ever this is the story of one extraordinary year with the Subaru world royalty it's going to be a hell of a season it's the final day of testing for the team's new car before the first rally of the season at Monte Carlo in just three weeks time the team is fine-tuning a new version of the Impreza world rally car that is evolved of the last 12 years they've redesigned hundreds of components and spent months testing all over Europe in a search for improve performance at the center of everything as always is their star driver Norwegian Petter Solberg patch is one of the top three drivers in the world a millionaire a perfectionist and a workaholic spot is 24 hours a day I loving it and this is everything for me it actually comes before my family and I know it it's not nice to say about that's how it is over hundreds of kilometres of testing that his feedback has been a crucial part of improving this year's no car but he's hoping that it's gonna turn around his fortunes patter was world champion with Subaru in 2003 [Applause] [Music] since they're in a combination of mistakes technical problems and bad luck has left him trailing his rivals had too much bad luck but this year it's our yeah being on the evil champion and I think everybody's going to work very hard to to get it back again [Applause] back in England Patty's team boss is a man equally obsessed with winning since the team began in 1989 David Lapworth has made the subaru brand synonymous with success in rallying to get the value out of a motorsport program you need to be seen to be winners you don't have to win every rally but you have to keep your strike rate such that you're always perceived to be in the frame you're always perceived to be a leading - David has a budget of 50 million euros a year and the facilities at one of Britain's biggest motorsport companies at his disposal today he's getting the latest reports from testing we spent five million euros of last year's budget on developing the new car so he's anxious that it will deliver results damn in the workshops his mechanics are more worried about simply getting the new car ready in time well we have to sort the work three cars for Monte Carlo are due to be shipped out by the end of the day with John McClane chief technician on Pettus car he's coming at part's crisis there are lots of small components and pieces that we're waiting on and it's slowly coming together mean everybody the memory department is as flat out to get the bits to us with just hours to go until those empty trucks outside needs to be loaded and hit the road this car is missing something rather vital its engine so how does one of the world's biggest and most successful rally teams find itself in a race just to get to the start line [Music] the survival of a world rally team depends more than anything else on their ability to turn one of these until one of these the rules state that world rally cars must be based on a current model four seater road car and that at least twenty five thousand them must have been built to sail it's this close relationship between the road car and the rally car that makes it so worthwhile for Subaru to spend fifty million euros a year of their marketing budget on their rally team they're both high performance four-wheel drive cars for the difference between a sports saloon car and a world rally car is reflected in their price tags [Music] so really appreciate the differences you need the help of a top professional driver 26 year-old Chris Atkinson is Australia's hottest young rally driver this year we'll be fighting for a permanent place with the Subaru team which has a reputation for turning young drivers into world champions so what do you get for 40 grand first you get a turbocharged 2.5 litre a 300 horsepower engine you get reliability ABS traction control four-wheel drive and a nice stereo my mom had a WRX when I was at school and this week I call the turn up in that and all the other guys would be and Chris can do a lap of this three kilometer test track in 1 minute 38 seconds so what do you get for six hundred and thirty thousand euros first a secret weapon called launch control we don't have to use the clutch it automatically engages and we can just take off straightaway and it manages the level of grip and controls our slip which means it starts like a rocket [Music] it makes the road car look like your granny's driving the most impressive touch the throttle and if it's gone the Ronnie car has a standard Subaru boxer engine rebuilt to racing specs optimized for torque and acceleration rather than top speed so that rocket thrust is available whenever you want it that's where you make garden rally you need to talk to respond between the corners and then you can get pushed and those little short bursts of speed where the drive car you also get a hundred thousand euros semi automatic gearbox which can change gear in 10 milliseconds back to that racing suspension weight reduction tires that cost 700 euros a piece and you've got a car that sticks the tarmac like glue and tears up this truck a massive eight seconds quicker than the road car and of course it can also do this this this so in that quest to extract every last scrap of performance out of every single component these guys will always use every last day hour and minute available to fine tune their machinery before each rally but if you're not in it you can't win it [Music] 1400 kilometers away temperatures are dropping snow is falling and the stage is set for one of the oldest and most challenging rallies in the world rally has evolved since the first monte carlo rally in 1911 20 motoring enthusiasts at up to 7 days to reach Monaco from six different star points in the 1920s the first high-speed time runs called stages were introduced to help decide the winner before long professional drivers started wrecking the time stages before events which led to the invention of pace notes it straight for about 400 yards Navigators became co-drivers and thanks to pacenotes and steadily improving car and engine design speeds rocketed [Music] after some nasty accidents with the infamous group B cars in the 1980s the World Rally Championship now has a tight technical formula designed to restrict powers at 300 horsepower and keep the spectacle within safe limits this year's monte carlo rally includes 366 kilometers of time stages over three days the drivers must also complete 970 kilometers of road sections between the stages and the main base service park in Monaco it's two days before the rally begins and the tension is mounting welcome to Monte Carlo the cars have arrived and the team is setting up its service area Engineering rooms workshops hospitality tents kitchens with food spares computers cables lighting everything they could possibly need for a weekend of rallying their big rivals are with an easy spying distance as our 41 privateer teams varying in size and budget from quite professional - one map and his hatchback after months of preparation it's finally time to unveil the new car and this year's lineup of drivers Pettit and priest are joined by French driver Stephane Sarrazin another young talent hoping to make it to the top level with suberin he's got four rallies with the team this year to prove what he can do Tommy the second yahoo Subaru so it's fantastic for me big opportunity and I know suka I know the mechanics engineer so it's a very good Thursday morning sees the team up in the mountains for shakedown an important for our practice session before the rally begins tomorrow the drivers will do multiple runs on a time 10 kilometer stage to prepare themselves and their cars for the unique challenges of this rally the temperatures typically are just around zero and the difference of a couple of degrees can be massive between the stage being dry and damp or being icy and you know treacherous and of course if it's nuts and it catches right you could build completely the wrong tire and lose minutes the monty is run on tarmac roads but in the blink of an eye they can change from dry to wet - ice or even snow for different services that demand different driving techniques different suspension settings and different times it's going to be a mad bad 350 kilometers down narrow Alpine roads make a mistake and you face either a stone wall private Airport or a massive drop off a cliff all this makes the monty an extreme test of man and machine Pecha slow on his first room which is incredible so much ice around and this morning it was afternoon just a bit in the morning then it's turned around to be a full line so you can never trust the pair this conditions hell no mount using undercover after each run the drivers and engineers get together to discuss improvements they can make to the car really step up there and say it's almost few days everyone so really struggling for a group infraction so you've gone a lot softer if it works everybody that's that's how the Philly report on the ocean confidence and traction that's the main thing if you don't have the pulley competence you lose a hell of a lot of time but doing some big step set up most important will be Pettus tire choice for each set of stages thanks for wildly unpredictable conditions the teams are allowed a wider range of different tire designs here than any other rally for the ice there's a special winter tire which can be fitted with metal studs around the edge for wet or slushy conditions there's a heavily grooved intermediate tyres for dry tarmac they're slicks these have lighter grooves leaving as much rubber as possible in contact with the road but whatever tie you choose it's going to be a compromise we have to think go into minute sooner or later the drivers will face dry tarmac on winter tires or black ice on snakes Montecarlo has everything snow eyes gravel tarmac dry wet everything and normally we have the wrong tires petter who's retired here three times out of five attempts but this year he's determined not to get left behind by his two main championship rivals the favorite is current world champion Frenchman Sebastien Loeb he's rhyming a Citroen Zara run by the Belgian Kronos team low globes Monte Carlo he's won here three times in four attempts but he's playing down his chances Papapa realities of what you often Middleford know to know the safe not sure don't wanna pop over cause who knew so I just gotta say you have an awesome patches other main rival is flying thin marcus grönholm it's the former champions first rally for Ford and he's liking his new car and I'm really optimistic and what we can do with a power saw it feels good of the big free grown home is the fastest in the shakedown but tomorrow will be the true test of how the rivals compare the team's head back to Monaco to analyze their data and finalize their strategy for the first stages of the rally the moment is the best guess that we can make I don't think we need to make don't see say I've been nice if I'm impatient I have there for Scotty and so today at the first run after my opinion what's more actually full Sun yeah we will make that decision obviously in the morning just to see their Subaru team meeting Petter would happily debate tire choices all night as one was no more decision because obviously we could get the cars all packed up not the 20 years of World Rally experience David is very much in charge of strategy and he won't be deciding anything until the overnight weather report coming right we're ready to have the meeting in the morning at 6:20 in two and a half hours time the team will get their first chance to see how their new car matches up to their rivals [Music] first test of the year lot of new things so we have to make sure that everything water it will work but first David must now decide what tires to give his drivers but the first set of three stages we're getting them to weather reports back from the statistics assay they're quite nice condition there's there's a little bit of ice and frost around and so on but they are much drier and cleaner of ice and snow than you would have expected 48 hours ago the first three stages are some of the highest in the rally they're also 77 kilometers away a two hour drive it was six o'clock in the morning when those reports were all right we have to make the tar choice at 6:30 and the cars don't go to stages for at least another couple of hours all the teams spy on each other to find out what tires their rivals are using so David already knows that Loeb is going out unstudied winter times but he's decided to gamble on a more ambitious strategy for his star driver he's putting Petter on slick tires the idea is that across all three stages Petter will be able to gain more time on the long dry sections that he loses on the icy patches David's gambling on what exactly happens with the weather over the next two hours as the drivers make their way into the mountains [Music] with just ten minutes to go before the first stage is due to start there's a problem [Music] [Applause] [Music] that's her and his co-driver Phil mills are stuck in traffic and is struggling to get to the start of the stage on time it seems that the Monte Carlo Rally is too popular for its own good finally Sebastien Loeb gets the Monte Carlo Rally of the way [Music] 13 minutes behind schedule patches of next 5 4 3 2 1 - Padres the team follows passes progress with a GPS tracking system they can compare his times every few kilometers with his rivals passes really struggling since dawn the temperatures actually dropped and harsh frost has made the stage extremely awesome Loeb makes light work of it on each study tires [Music] petter has the tip toe on his slicks it's full I saw that through the heavens petter finishes the stage 11th which turns out to be equal last place the traffic problems meant that only 11 cars made it to the first stage the other 42 entrants have been sent back to Monaco and awarded petyr's time Petra now needs much dry conditions for his tire strategy to pay off [Music] on stage to the Monte Carlo Rally Subarus Petter Solberg already has two minutes to make up the stage is drier but not drying off this time Grand Ole Miss fastest I'll intermediate tyres pet is still struggling David slick tire gamble is misfiring badly we underestimated just how frosty it would get and that choice was too optimistic so we lost a little bit of time in there Stage three is looking much drier pattern can now push hard and try to get back some of that lost time or can he let specialty one Elite Eight annaleigh they decided to cancel the stage three because they were only 11 gas in the rally yeah fine didn't take a student we all know should the council stage turns a bad tire choice into a disaster but David's not giving up he's putting in an official protest yeah I mean it's helping us and I feel just what we're trying to prove to them is the only fair thing to do is to cancel The Times from 1 & 2 by the time the drivers get back to Monaco the dust is settled Petter and Phil get the verdicts Subaru's protest has been rejected you can imagine how annoyed we are we've got so much time in the first two which we knew we were going to do then take it all back again in stage three so the plan was working perfectly but then it was cancelled so it's quite a big mess now at lunchtime service the team is allowed 30 minutes to work on each car while Petter checks in with the bosses the sport film The Hunger frozen eyes the whole stage David and his engineers need a new tire strategy for this afternoon's three stages Luis Moya is on his bike spying on Ford and Chronos all part of his role as sporting director you can see what life as it is we got blown to see what Marcus does maybe not prison hi Louis slick slick okay thank you this time David's going more cautious than his rivals he needs Petter to get his confidence back so he's giving him intermediates back in the mountains that local Jean DOM have cleared the roads and the full field of 53 cars is finally unleashed Pettus confidence returns he can finally start pushing and working his way back the field he's on the pace the new car feels great Petter is back in the groove for the final stage of the day brings more drama you stop stuff dinner early card this stage move the yellow the yellow hasn't moved - it was odds on that at least one driver will get caught out on the ice today when or dreamed it would be this one he won't be getting out of there in a hurry [Music] Riley teams don't normally celebrate each other's misfortunes but with Sebastien Loeb they make an exception we get quite excited a Sebastien Loeb never stops maybe once a year and now we stand on the first event of this year and that's good he went off in a very icy or something icy be breaking it steady beau conditions now I I really hate this I have been like driving like my grandmother Lopes crushed leaves crawled home leading the rally second fastest on the final stage puts Petter up to seventh overall [Music] but the biggest up of the day comes from a Monte Carlo rookie going with the safest tied choice all day as put Chris Atkinson in second place he can't quite believe it himself stop there pedigree plates everything the 75 kilometers ride back to Monaco is officially part of the rally it must be driven at normal Road speeds but there's a time limit low Citroen he's got to be late but it's not all over yet so called super alley rules mean that if the car can be repaired lo can take a five-minute time penalty and rejoin the rally tomorrow bikini the shotgun on Oprah's Mopar saloon to a possible permit MOT juste debout challenge most efficacy epicene meanwhile Subaru now have problems of their own Pat just stop to the side of the road with a leak from his oil cooler he infill of just 40 minutes to fix the leak and drive over 40 kilometers back to Monaco for every minute they're late they'll get a time penalty the team can't go out and help him all they can do is apply their brains and their computers to the problems right at the bottom what good salmon to come from the bus and we don't like working either maybe under grants approach the top of the ALS pipe we're like legitimately the loser your caller won't go straight to the block emergency surgery seem as possible you can do it no it's accesses our see what I think no petrol and Phil are instructed how to use a piece of piping to bypass the leaking oil cooler [Music] if once you've got that people you need to make sure those hoes deserve it's a risky operation of the emergency bypass doesn't work the engine could drain of oil and be permanently damaged well it's some risk that David would rather take than recovery and a five-minute penalty myself because it could boil there's now less than half an hour to get back to Monaco forever once that point that he must be returned if he doesn't drive at a good speed he's gonna get back David needs Petter to drive flat-out to make it back on time $47 we just need to connect the antenna recognize no packet must keep one eye on the road and the other on his oil pressure that he just got to drive on the oil line that's a minute they all like comes on just together no soap in science it must be one that scum of Patras most oil pressure and stops again the engine stopping itself they've used all their spare oils so there's no point in trying to fix the car again it will have to be recovered now petrol fill will have to take a penalty maybe worse there's obviously a risk that that's done some damage to the engine we won't know till we get the car back here we took another hour or so if it needs an engine replacement which we're not allowed to do within the regulations then we'll have to retire the car not seen the passage around two hours later pledges come he's finally back at service park now the team can see for themselves what went wrong the oil cooler has a crack where the oil leaked it looks like a straightforward oil leak we just have to hope that it's not done any damage to the engine the cooler can be replaced it's going to be much harder to work out if the engine has sustained damage because the rules don't allow it to be opened up we can look inside the engine for its spark like olive see there's no problem in the top there we can also poke around and look around from the bottom end we can't get into the engine so we can't check things like bearings and so on but we can refill the engine with oil change your filter everything start it up and see if all the oil pressure data looks normal and if it is we've got a good chance of carrying on [Music] it's an agonizing wait for Petter and his engineer however I get the poem from a phone call from Tim later and I think they have to work very hard with a card to see what they can do anyway well hopefully they can sort of I think it's maybe lipedema yet eventually the diagnosis is announced the engines completely seized so we can't change the engine you can't pull it apart to have a look or do anything so I'll send to the rally for that car but we're tired the car we want to continue in okay so I send the paper it down to the control okay it's a depressing end to a roller coaster first day of the season after a massive push to get the new car ready to risky decisions and two bits of bad look have spoiled the Montecarlo party for subaru it's the worst possible start to their big stars World Championship campaign competitors fourth Monte Carlo retirement I can't believe it every the Subaru team are no strangers to just how cruel motorsport can be but they know how to bounce back this misfortune has created a wonderful opportunity for the team's two young drivers for the rest of this rally these guys have a rare chance to steal the limelight and maybe secure themselves a future in the team Chris is David's current favorites he's been guaranteed a drive in 11 rallies this season and second place after day one has hugely impressed the boss step amateurs for rallies this season has got his work cut out to get hired for next year ahead of Chris this morning they face a much tougher challenge than yesterday [Music] warmer temperatures means that slick tires are the only competitive option but there's still plenty of ice around every corner you go around you go out of it out of the sunshine the grip changes dramatically Stefan had a taste of this on Friday morning so he's got an opportunity to make up time on his team-mates who's very much as slick tires on ice five lengths go 100 Chris's enjoying the challenge for the team isn't enjoying his times then one stage is already slipped to fourth place well that's the first time I've been on a sleek on ice ever so still learning by the time with about [Music] this is Stefan's chance to take over his favorite son he finds his groom these times are even a match for rally leader wrong home over three stages he's over a minute faster than his teammate back at service Stefan's star performance as one favor with the team's inner circle he's made it a very positive morning for the new car and David even snips a possible podium finish you were like five seconds faster most of the guys this afternoon the Monte Carlo I'm skating challenge will reach its climax still on slicks the drivers must face the snow bound summit of the famous Col de Turini the fans flock here every year to witness the inevitable carnage last year the calls list of high-profile victims included both Petter and marcus grönholm so David's determined that his new favorite road warrior is mentally prepared for the challenges to the top the way you drove yesterday I know no no but but still yeah ma Sophia's the same slow careful insolently come out on the right line okay no smoke until the turn with Petter on the sidelines Stefan's getting a taste of what it's like to be a top teams number one drive every night we have been done or very well no pressure step-aunt on a roll sixteen seconds faster than Chris onstage ten and takes his place overall but he's no longer satisfied with just beating his teammate he's setting his sights much higher difficult to go very fast and I try to to push more on the next one we see [Music] stephane starts the ascent to the Col de Turini determined to prove he can drive like a champion it's a long climb to the 1600 meters summit then the fun begins these conditions can really reduce world champion's - granny pace I'll make foods out of others [Music] Lopes teammate Javier pongs entertains the crowds with a whole series of spins [Applause] muscle freedom [Music] chris is cautious determined to keep his on the road but he's torturously slow Stefan's driving like an old pro fast on the ice fast on the snow he's third fastest on the stage and up to fifth overall now he's really put his teammate at his place beating Chris by a minute and thirty seconds on that final stage being cautious on your Monte Carlo debut is fine but dropping from second to six in one day is not doing chris's reputation all his confidence any favors and this afternoon we're just too cautious on the training stage everyone was warning about how tricky it was and and then you just be as easy to be too caution just throw weight on Sunday morning brings an opportunity for Chris to fight back cultivate his men to return to winter tires Chris can gain his confidence back and prove that he too has what it takes we beat Stefan by 16 seconds on the first stage 5 right over 4d it's game on [Music] on the final day of the Monte Carlo Rally Subaru team rivals Chris and Stefan are fighting for their world rocky futures pushing each other faster and faster through the mornings last two stages it's good news for the team this jewel is making Subaru look good but service David seen enough the afternoons final three stages are his last chance to play the tire choice game Chris gets to stay on winter tires but David has a new challenge for Stefan if you wanted to do something interesting you go on an it nobody alright he's done his maths and worked out though with intermediate eyes there's still a slim chance of Stefan taking fourth or even third place but it's going to be very risky though gamble without the courses we stand to gain in the dry sections something like a minute and a half yeah but on the icy sections we will lose something normally we'd say 10 seconds per kilometer so overall the balance looks faster to go on the intermediate time but you you gain those 20 seconds that's quite a high level of risk Stefan can see pain but not too much gain there's a place no no no no no you are you want to is a place you'll know you'll lose everything [Music] that's what I'm saying - yeah from a performer it's a tricky dilemma Stephane needs to be sure he wins his battle with Chris but he also needs to prove to the boss that he can be a team player going to be six or seven phases you go yeah but I'm taking team player it is Stefan's car is fitted with intermediates [Music] it's a very tense icy stage 16 for Stefan it needs to by this time here are not throw aways weekends work [Music] he loses 25 seconds to Chris but he's safely through now Stefan has to shine and he delivers here's a man fighting for his place in the team and giving it his all second-fastest on the stage he makes back all the time and on the final rung through the Col de Turini he takes another 20 seconds from his teammate just want to say welcome boys and thank you very much we've learned some valuable points there so what we look forward to seeing Oakland service over it's not enough to take fourth place but Stefan still of it exactly what was required he's made his boss look smart it's worked out pretty much as we predicted the calculations of you know time gain time losses all through the stage were just about spot-on meanwhile on the final stage world champion Sebastian lo completes an amazing recovery to second place despite that five-minute penalty finishing only a minute behind run home [Applause] forge celebrate a victory for their new driver on his maiden run [Applause] chris has brought his car safely home in six he throw away second place but it's still a good result on his Monte Carlo debut in fifth Stefan's beaten Chris here and proved he's a team player but has he done enough he now is just three more rallies this year to prove to the team that he and not the young Australian should be their number two by the end of the season one of these drivers will be hired the other fired look on tomorrow that won't be top of David's priority list there's that mixed feeling of you know please for these two guys what they've done and slightly frustrated but I didn't get the chance to show what you can do in just ten days time the team faced a very different challenge they're very cold very fast rally of Sweden David needs better to get on a charge find out just how fast their new car really is and get his world championship campaign back on track [Music] a beautiful winter's day in the forests the perfect chance for a picnic Swedish style welcome to the craziest rally challenge on earth freezing temperatures snowdrifts narrow forest roads slippery ice this is one of the fastest events in the World Rally Championship it's the best and worst of everything this is rally driving heaven and hell but despite a bad start to the season one top team is coming here brimming with confidence [Music] [Music] [Music] in their workshops in Oxfordshire England the men and women of the Subaru World Rally Team are rebuilding their cars and their hopes at the first rally of the season in Monte Carlo the team launched a new 600 thousand euro world rally car in a bid for championship glory this year but star driver Petter Solberg was forced to retire at the end of the first day with engine failure very disappointed and I was looking forward to this rally just to get some points and so we can start on pushing very hard for us with Sweden rally now the team had just one week to fix the problem and rebuild the car in time for Sweden but team boss David Lapworth specializes in locking on the bright side you can't let a disappointing start to the season you get on top of your meter a zero in any rally is the same it doesn't matter when you have the points up at the end of year doesn't matter what order they came in David's got another 15 rallies to prove his point but first he's got to fix that car so how do you fix a major design floor with a rally car in just one week well it helps if you have the facilities of one of Britain's largest and most successful motorsports companies at your disposal pro-drive has been running the Subaru World Rally Team for 17 years with David Lapworth at the helm David's boys can redesign build and test almost any component in a fraction of the time it would take the manufacturer it's like comparing the SAS with the Regular Army we have to cut a few corners because we're in competition with somebody down the road and if we waited until we've been through a three year development cycle somebody up at Ford or across at Citroen would have introduced their new car a year earlier and we'd be too slow david's crack troops I used to reacting fast while he was still in Monte Carlo they swung into action and already have a new part ready for inspection the problem as it manifested itself on the rally was a tiny hairline crack here in the end time which is where the oil was leaking from so we've made some new parts we've made a new end tank that goes on the end of the oil cooler there which is machined from solid is in better material and thicker material and it's reinforced inside that should eliminate the risk that in the same circumstances that we would have the same failing job done things are rarely that straightforward in motorsports David's been called in to an emergency meeting with his chief designer Ed Wood who has bad news it seems they fixed the wrong components ad now thinks the real cause of the problem was in the pump that circulates the oil around the whole system we took it at face value and thought oh we've got a problem with your collar design so we fixed the auto all of design we didn't spot that actually it was a it was an effect no of course now they've got a real challenge just one day to design test build and install some brand new oil pump valves pleasures car may be worth over 600,000 gyros but it was just one of these one euro valves that brought in to a standstill [Music] amazingly less than 12 hours later the new valves are ready and installed so far Davis optimism has been vindicated his Army's back on the move now there's just the small matter of relaunching their season with a repeat of last year's victory in Sweden [Applause] [Music] the Swedish rally takes place in the forests and frozen farm and in the south of the country based around the town of hag force the three-day event includes 19 times stages totaling 349 competitive kilometers these narrow tracks covered in snow and ice have long straight sections combining almost zero grip with breathtakingly first speeds the drivers must also complete 1,100 kilometers of road sections between the stages and the service park just outside hag force but before you can start doing that you need to do a lot of this - our hopes a little bit on a freezing January morning the world's top drivers collect at this remote a service station just 300 kilometers from Oslo this is Pettis home rally and a few die-hard fans are here already but recce day isn't the drivers day ignored by the fans and cameras are the co-drivers the work they do over the next two days can mean the difference between winning and losing the rally Petra's co-driver is Welshman's Phil Mills as cautious meticulous and keeps his head whatever happens it seems that opposites attract that's important when you spend so much time together like last year for instance 220 days we spent on the road Phil Mills he is my wife in the in the rally car no.6 210 of those days was inside the car together you know six inches apart inside the car and there's a lot going on on there as it gets quite stressful sometimes it's very tiring so unless we got on it just wouldn't work and you know some relationships in the past whether he's right or wrong you have to take it because the driver should only concentrate on driving indica you should not think about anything else liking each other helps think at the same sense of humor we like the same things in life we've all you've got a passion for old cars and all these sort of silly things that make relationships get on you know so yeah it's a very successful relationship on the recce each stage may be driven through slowly twice on the first pass phil takes down detailed notes of every section of road every bump and every obstacle two-six left on the second he checks them back with Petter on the rally at full speed petal will be driving blind relying on 100% accurate notes so it's not to crash so when his day ends Phil's is far from over well here we got the notes from last year our system very simple it's a number system one two six one being a slow corner and six being a very fast corner and if you imagine that the numbers as gears a five right plus which would be a fifth gear right hand corner accelerating on on full throttle 50 metres to a flat six Neph plus over crest so that's the fastest corner you'll ever have absolutely flat out in sixth gear over a left-hand crest phil has about a page of his weird hieroglyphics per kilometer to prepare and there's over 300 left to go this is the side of the sport that that nobody sees I suppose to be honest with you I think the the actual day of the event is actually the easy bit for the co-driver it's 6:30 a.m. and the service Park is already humming with activity build Marshall Lapworth is doing his rounds whose general Pearl house is rallying the troops reminder strategy better obviously it's one of its target events yeah all we've got to do in our area is keep on the case doing our job that's how good teams work any shakedown is a whole throttle dress rehearsal for the main event which starts tomorrow a chance for everyone to get up to speed the drivers to get a feel for the conditions the engineers to fine-tune the handling of the cars and the army of mechanics to do what they do best work fast on the pressure each car has its own squadron of eight mechanics John McClane is the captain of the team working with Pettis car car number five car number six is driven by young Australian a crisp Atkinson and is looked after by Simon Baker both captain's will be hoping for a quiet event rebuilding cars when your fingers are about to drop off with frostbite ain't much fun [Music] eleven days on from Monte Carlo it's time for David and his team to set the record straight time to prove their 600,000 euro car can be a rally whither Petter can finally put his foot down but so can his rivals John home low 118 of the world's top drivers from 24 countries and they all speak one language - even 14 keep depth of alone crash - delighted to deep-six like - I'm not guarded fine big of a jump 26 like extra lon package service david waits for the verdict from his star driver the smile says it all in an instant Subaru season is back on track but with over three hours of shakedown to go the engineer's want more we're certainly not too far away now we're bang on target and we hope that just a small step will will will get us to you know where we need to be they've got the speed now the engineers want their two drivers to feel complete confidence in their towns confidence is so important actor to commit to the very long fast corners which is a key for winning a Swedish rally's high speed confidence with their times improving room-by-room both drivers clearly believe in the car botox comeback the smile on their faces and they say yeah it feels really good to make that main worry guys keeping it on the road and all dirt and turning their enthusiasm into a win hedge is on a high he loves his car he loves his job and the fans they love Petter [Applause] it's official the Swedish rally has begun it's party time is thousands of Swedish fans the media and a global TV audience welcome to home favorites [Applause] if all goes to plan better and Phil will be back here on Sunday night to get their mitts on some silverware but that's a big if [Applause] [Music] Friday morning just before sunrise spirits are high today the teams will contest the first six stages of the rally the mechanics get ten minutes to prepare the cars and there's always a last-minute decision the tire choice here in Sweden they use narrow snow tires with steel studs in these conditions the tire choice is only really about the length of the stud and we've got seven millimeter and eight millimeter stud see the studs are designed to bite through the snow and grip the hard ice beneath the theory the eight millimeter studs are better when there's loose snow on the ground and the shorter seven mil for clean hard ice according to weather reports this morning stages of a mixture of both the stages are mixed and it is it's almost the toss the coin it's more about drive the psychology and work is in the right feeling and so on both drivers we've gone for the one that is the longest stud which gives them more confidence the top 15 drivers will start the rally in the order they finished at Monte Carlo so because he retired there Pettis had an extra half an hour in bed this morning's two stages are 66 kilometers to the north fast stages with some spectacular jumps the drivers start two minutes apart and first up is Monte Carlo winner marcus grönholm second deadline is world champion Sebastian Loeb in the control room that seemed monitor every cars progress using a GPS system Petter and Phil gets a slight advantage because the team can send them their rivals times so they know how hard to push home at twenty five point seven two five point seven low but twenty-eight point five to eight point five stall at thirty second point nine at three six point nine five four three [Music] with a perfect car and attack full of confidence Petter engages maximum with it and it's paying off he's matching run homes times as he approaches the big jumps like this all over taxes he pays 100 what's happened supervision fellas could slowly we got broken driveshaft just six kilometers in and David's world has been turned inside their hands a broken drive shaft isn't terminal but it's very serious as a four-wheel drive car the impressa has four Drive shafts transferring power from the engine to the wheels without one driveshaft the car only has two wheel drive losing traction losing acceleration wheeler atoms fight to lose as little time as possible just businessman is it we kept it to the under a minute anyway without seeing the car David and his team must now try and work out exactly what has happened and why which ends broken front door eeeh die so how did it happen today did you feel anything happened before out of a corner ok lending pattern now has another stage to complete before returning to the service area I think Tommy gets back here we're gonna adopt in two minutes plus the tea prepare for service they only get 30 minutes and they can't just replace the driveshaft they must diagnose exactly why it failed Subaru's director of engineering Steve Farrell is waiting to get a look at the offending part this is a driveshaft obviously with a four-wheel drive car that drives all four wheels therefore of these each corner that basically transmits the engine torque from the transmission which out to the wheel and ultimately to the ground in the backyard there's a cage in here and with a with six poles that do the driving and it came back without all the internals the cage had completely exploded inside but with the evidence spread halfway across Sweden it's difficult for Steve to find the cause of the failure clearly the cage just doesn't explode because it's once - and we stripped it to try to see if there was anything obviously wrong but this one really is still a mystery but Steve's got to do something we can't really send the car back out having had a problem and say we've done absolutely nothing about it Steve suspects the problem may lie in the length of the drive shafts so he's ordered some changes to the geometry of the suspension designed to allow them more movement [Music] buzzers clock is counting down with the work still not completed the precious beginning to show the pavement I tell you all you want to do comment on and talk to me [Music] time's up competitors back in the car the next two stages are a repeat of stages 1 & 2 so better now faces the same jump that broke his driveshaft its bite your nails off time for Steve Farrell after losing over three minutes thanks to his broken driveshaft Petter Solberg is now on the comeback trail it's not often that a World Rally Champion storms it's another seven seconds lost - - Japan who that - repeater Titans one Titan of again but the good news is a safe passage through Fredericksburg big jumps driveshaft syntax answer is flying but he needs his rivals to slip up for him to catch them forged markers go home immediately obliges for the schoolboy error a few seconds lost was an expert recovering meanwhile Subaru number two Chris Atkinson has had a good morning he's in fifth place and finds himself in the limelight as Subarus leading driver but not for long it's the same spot as grown home but this time the tree comes off best he's brought the steering rack he's dropped some time in there's about five signs a kilometer against everybody else really still going to do the next stage now we know power steering which is gonna be quite tough quite twisty in sections and narrow so they'll drop a lot more time in there as well cornering becomes tough hairpins impossible Chris loses three minutes and drops to 27th place we're trying to aim for fifth off Raleigh was looking like we're going to achieve that quite easily similar to the face in Monte Carlo and just being a big disappointment David's reeling from this morning's double whammy morale is sinking and hearing the leaders stage times really isn't helping goodnight that's rather attend the 40.8 [Music] after a bad start to the Swedish rally Subaru are preparing for what will be another frantic service in all probability changing the front steering crossmember front drive shaft steering rack and steering BOM steering cooler filter so about four days work for your high street carriage in 30 minutes but while Subarus crack team get down to it David is dealing with an even more serious problem a few kilometers away another car is being repaired Pettit and Phil have finished the stage but haven't made it back to service has reported an oil pressure warning from his gearbox and David made a quick decision to put it into safe mode to avoid a major breakdown but that switched off the automatic gearbox so now petaa has to find a gear the hard way with a screwdriver [Music] and they're against the clock because if they check in late for service they'll get a time penalty they arrived back 13 minutes late and gets a 2 minutes 10 seconds now David's going to really struggle to keep up his brave face he did a great job to reduce something to get the car going again and to get here at all he nearly had to retire on this one truth is both Subaru cars are now fighting for survival out at the front run home and Loeb are fighting for the lead pushing hard despite no major mistakes or reliability problems both Subaru cars are left far down the field and over five minutes behind by the end of what has been an extraordinary day to finish the first day like this is not what we had in mind you know yesterday after the shakedown we thought that you know we had a chance of a good chance have been in front the boys on the ground you know they're working they're artists doing the job right it just is not coming together we just seen it all our bad luck seemed to happen and in literally a group of stages they just simply won't come out for another but David must now face facts he simply can't blame bat look you can talk about bad luck oh you can put in any way you want and then the day we've got to come we've got to be right on the day we've got to deliver if you have to go back and look at where the mistakes were made whether they were you know design issues or quality control issues or you know human error or whatever all roads lead to Rome to the to the basic design of the car there's a day and a half to go somehow David must keep his team and his cars together and salvage your results from this Swedish nightmare it's hours before dawn well below freezing but this Subaru man is already hard at work weatherman Richard card experiences each rally in a very different way to the rest of his teammates there's always a variant between air and ground once the Sun comes up the the air temperature will drop it will go even colder and probably drop to minus 20 overnight the temperature has dropped by over 10 degrees good morning Kent Mon image it's definitely cold here okay yep of minus 17 yeah Madison senior I've got a clear sky not a cloud in the sky there's no breeze I've walked the stage and everything is compact ice it's absolutely rock-solid okay I'll come back to in 15 minutes in do a photo about half an hour so we can show them obviously back in the serious part what the stage is like the frozen mechanics wait for David and the engineers to give them their orders what you can't do in this situation is make sure you you get the maximum benefit of what's left and what we've tried to do is keep get the cars going keep the drivers motivated and trying to set some fast pace times and so on [Music] going for fast stage times is plenty of motivation for Petter he's rested rejuvenated and ready to blow away those blues it's 8:00 a.m. and Pettis fans are out in force after more than three hours waiting in the snow carnies job is about to get a lot more exciting yeah I'm gonna try and send you a photo we can come over with this stage run twice today the engineers have asked for up-to-the-minute photos of the conditions that the drivers can expect later and card is taking them literally [Music] starting to rush it is yeah where the line is it's definitely rotting up Bokke paratis why does the world ballet champion will be the driver with the most points at the end of the season ten points are awarded for a win down to a one point four eighth place with 16 rallies in the season has seen one point to decide the title so every place practically clawback one as precious and the plan seems to be working he posts the third fastest time for this stage my time to get there live it into rhythm but the ultimate nice house the hated working there be cold it's minus 18 on the road sectional they need some more wooly scarves and mittens to stages in and no reliability problems for Subaru but pet is going to have to up his pace to catch the leaders so David's thinking about changing his gear box I think you just get faster faster [Music] directors we ever get more sinister but since each car is only allowed 2 per rally this must be the gearbox that was taken out of the car having failed yesterday David now makes an extraordinary confession the one that's going back in years oh it's only a tiny problem with the valve in fact with the benefit of hindsight which is a great thing we overreacted we misread some of the information that was coming about some of the data overreacted operated as of a failsafe mode that we didn't need to if Petter had switched all the failsafe back off again and tried again the gearbox would have worked you know more than adequately to drive back down the road section and come in without any penalties Petty's original gearbox may have slightly better settings for today's conditions but David obviously hasn't heard the expression if it ain't broke don't fix it just hope he's told Petter it's good yeah it was very good straightaway very good like it should be not very good even aware of that plan wasn't it at the beginning of the day yeah it's a bit of a respite at a hundred thousand euros a pop the gearbox is the most expensive component of the car it can change gear in ten milliseconds that's 50 times faster than typical Road car an important when a rally driver changes gear over a thousand times a day it also contains the front and center differentials and the ones in this gearbox are optimized for hard acts just eight stages so with this one back in the car Petter should be even faster than this morning [Music] and he is he's back in Raleigh heaven his blistering pace in the next two stages lives in closer to a point spawn face [Music] [Music] but on the road section between stages it's David's worse not better again reports that the pressure in the hydraulic gear system is falling is there definitely no pressure there it's enter the computer files it's the same problem as yesterday the gearbox really is broken after all David's gamble for more speed has fallen flat on its face can you do the whole stage in fourth gear like the better for they down to third as he approaches the stage yeah once he's moving on the stage stick it up into fourth and then I would suggest he leaves it Pat is told to continue on to the stage but to stay in fourth gear to avoid a complete gearbox failure as Petter starts the stage David in the team watch and hope 24 seconds he lost off the start line far yeah not he's losing very little now he's actually gaining there as he gets through the stage but he's lost another 55 seconds but he's not the only driver having trouble the Swedish rally is taking its toll [Music] [Applause] [Music] the carnage means Pettus actually moved up to 14th place Petter seems to have come through the pain and out the other side but others aren't laughing Richard Taylor is the team's managing director technically David Lapiths boss he normally just observes during rallies but it's reached the point where he feels he has to get involved I think both perspectives it means to believe is going to work so - Mason Tony Richie walks the focus back on reliability with 14 rally still to go he needs to restore his star drivers faith in his car and his team easier said than done Petter safely through stage 12 but his Swedish nightmares far from over on the last stage of the day a spectator special in front of thousands of his adoring fans Petter buries his car in a snowbank one that just happens to contain a concrete post leaving him limping to the end of the stage has big problems yes after 30 liters of the stage Millie Asian of a better and yet more hard work for the team they bill attic thirty hours already but now pettis carnies new from bodywork a new steering rack upright and parts of the suspension while cruises team are replacing his gearbox clutch and differential that's all on top of regular service [Music] it may have been one of the worst days of rallying Lapiths ever seen but he still got his loyal troops behind it at the moment we're just doing the vice commander not questioning it maybe even rallies great optimist will soon have to admit defeat Zeus be one of those weekend's the snow begins to fall tomorrow Sweden has one more nasty trick for Subaru in store [Music] nine hours later and it's straight back to work heavy snowfall overnight means this morning's three stages will be quite different from yesterday and Subaru will be hit the worst temperature okay yeah yeah with the top 15 cars running in reverse order Petter and Chris will be 2nd and 3rd on the road plowing the fresh snow for the cars that follow behind 3 2 1 Vic left to pick like 100 now it's going to take some real genius for Petter to get into the points so much snow has been thrown onto the car but Petter can hardly see the road I've got so much normal new instruments I couldn't see anything from the start there the next stage is clearer pets is third fastest and gaining fast on the man in front of him that's Britt they both got her quite well you gain a little bit I think where it's icy and we lose a little bit where it's snowy and overall it looks very close there's some splits we're faster than Sebastian and Marcus which is nice to see on stage 16 Petter brakes heavily into a corner and stalls the engine by right back he recovers quickly but the joys of racing on Sweden's snow and ice are wearing soon so then snow on the back as well yeah look at Lally on the front you can't see it on the back edge it's like it yeah we don't want it the front of the car shows signs of damage but the real problem is the huge amount of snow and ice that's being thrown upon to the car it's not just affecting visibility the sheer weight of it is causing problems with the handling you get to get away that's nervous that yes the police were running first on the road worked really disadvantaged at all today when it snowed overnight there is a clear disadvantage we last by the way Krista's car and there was over 20 kilos of ice on it as it went out so obviously a few more kilos here not the best business on the road so David's got yet another problem to deal with until now there's been one consolation for all the unreliability when working it's been a very fast car being slow as well maybe too much for Petter to bear this just three stages to go patters in 13th place all he wants now is a fast car for the run to the finish but it may be too much to ask and is that from the beginning or is that as it as the stages go on you feel the cars were heavy and lazy lots of questions but David is running out of answers they've got a character building are they the things that have gone wrong of taking this really by surprise yeah we need to get to the bottom of why with some of them we still don't understand exactly why they've happened and it's not over yet John McClane can't stop the fault is a loose wire at the back of the starter motor and John gets Petter back out on time by the skin of his teeth [Music] he's pushing hard the Pettus still can't match rally leader drawn Holmes pace sixth fastest leaves him still in unlucky 13 place [Music] no no it's the start of the penultimate stage of the Swedish rally its stall did it [Music] without the same as the stall on day one can we open the bonnet no no no it's absolutely dead there's nothing on the button at all get better Theresa PCU and can you go under the bonnet and check the small wires on the back of the starter motor blaze negative we're on the start mine okay just for reset PCs give that a try please right now this person has nothing to start off start away believe it you know and now it's enough they pushed you off and negative that's all you can do accomplishing it now when you think you can't go any worse sometimes it does doesn't it moving anyway no there's cost in eight minutes so getting the car pushed off the side of the road and then reconnecting one [Music] petter finally gets on the move unaware of the consequences of his start line woes there is a obscurer rule that if you don't clear the start line within 20 seconds of the start signal being given you're excluded it's it's a very the word she's a very disproportionate penalty with the world rally jury looking at the evidence patter just keeps on going having come so far he's determined to make it to the finish but it's all in vain the outcome is this exclusion and and really it's the icing on the cake of weekend from hell really it's first being the worst weekend of rallying you've ever had a male or female [Music] grönholm wins the rally for Ford making it two in a row on his birthday [Applause] [Music] reigning champ below is second and Subarus number two Chris Atkinson finishes 11th Subaru came to Sweden determined to make up for their false start in Monte Carlo this was a rally that Petter was expected to win instead David and his team have been put through seven circles of a frozen we've probably got collectively 150 years of motorsport experience in the office there and though and none of us can remember a weekend like this what I think this weekend has been a real kick up the backside for me I'm in charge of the engineering and the engineering has let the team down not happen again David must now face up to reality but there's something fundamentally wrong with this year's car and he knows more than anyone with so much at stake his Subaru paymaster's simply can't afford to let this go on this time a quick fix is not going to be good enough it should not accept the situation and you longer so have a big meeting this time very serious meeting several times you have some plan to fix it there's still forcing rallies to go on tarmac gravel hot cold high and low plenty of trying to get their season back on track but back at base the Subaru team faces a big shake-up heads are about to roll [Music] [Music] 2,000 meters above sea level in the shadow of the Andes rocki lunar landscapes roads fit for donkeys and deep river crossings welcome to rally driver hell the World Rally Championship is the most grueling test ever devised for two men and a car an Argentine can be a real heartbreaker so for top teen fighting for the first win of the season the one thing they must have here is a reliable car with professionals from a distance [Music] to succeed in rally it's not enough to be the fastest the hardest thing is to make it to the finish something that one of the top drivers in the world has found almost impossible to achieve this season Norwegian Petter Solberg is the lead driver for the Subaru World Rally Team he won the world championship in 2003 and to retake this title is his obsession for me motorsport is 24 hours a day they told me to you know get a little bit real life to take care of my family a little bit but I count matches year started brightly with a launch of a new car I'm ready to try to get back to championship it's gonna be a hell of a season with things turned sour when his engine failed on the first day two weeks later in Sweden catalog of engineering failures again stopped in reaching the finish not happening he can't up just two events into the 16 rally World Championship Petter was dropping far behind his rivals the reigning world champion French heartthrob Sebastien Loeb was runner-up in the first two events winner of both was flying thin marcus grönholm one of the most experienced and emotional drivers in the competition to catch them Petter needs a competitive and reliable car does look good and a team needs a big shake-up back at team headquarters in the UK it was time for major changes with an annual budget of 50 million euros failure isn't tolerated for long first to leave was the rally car chief designer Ed Wood but the second big change sent shockwaves through the rallying world after 17 years and six world championship trophies team boss David Lapworth felt the time had come to step down just got to the stage now where I think it's time to to look at pastors in here and maybe to try and land or something else but losing his mentor wasn't the change that Petter had in mind I'm gonna miss him that's where the experience or 20 years we're rallying you know you can't beat that there's no single replacement for Lapworth instead a series of promotions and new hirings designed to shake up the way the whole team is wrong first Paul how earth 17 years ago he started as an apprentice mechanic now he's a team boss taking charge of all day-to-day operations he manages with a military style that keeps the Army's mechanics on their toes probably on the case with what's gone on why it's going on and I'm determined to get it sorted out car has to be reliable it has to be fast if the team on event don't have that that vehicle to do that then you know you could say why are we turning up Paul now has just four weeks before rally Argentina to get the team back on track and solve those reliability problems [Music] meanwhile patter is out testing with his new French engineer he's about to find out if the big shake-up can get his season back on track [Music] for weeks before the Argentina rally the Subaru team is in Sardinia for a pre-event test they spend 70 days and over a million euros testing each year it's here they do the real hard work on both performance and reliability Petter has just three days to prepare himself and his car for Argentina in charge is Luis Moya the team sporting director is one of the most successful co drivers of all time he's responsible for team strategy driver management and team morale Luis has brought the team here to simulate the conditions they'll face in Argentina [Music] gravel comes in all shapes and sizes loose sandy gravel hard compact gravel and large sharp rocks if trying to find a had surface so to develop a tire that lasts long in the stages particularly in halting warmed conditions I mean the weather is not happy much today but the surface it's right to a rally driver gravel is a similar challenge to a waterlogged Road please travel here when you have water on the road people understands whatever planning means you know the tire doesn't get to the ground the tire goes from top and just light and what you want is attired to go through and to clean the gravel so you can get through to the ground that's the main thing you know should you get all the footprint you can on the ground the better the footprint is the better the grip the faster the car the aim of this test is to choose the right ties for Argentina and set up the car to get the best out of the moon Petter straps in for another important day in the office with his co-driver Phil Mills with Phil's pacenotes guiding him through the test stage Petter can concentrate on driving fast and consistently we start the test and then better start to feel de care in a road that is close and secure and he goes up and down the road to try to fine-tune the car as best as he can betters main concern is how the car handles through high speed corners as he approaches a corner he breaks he has a split second to feel how much grip the car has a sliding car loses speed so he makes a series of adjustments steering braking and throttle limits on the sideways movement to get round the corner as fast as possible without crashing [Music] making the car do what Petter once is the job of his engineer and as part of the big shake-up he's got a new one top French techie Francois Savio de maison FX is quickly getting up to speed with Petra's way of working Patel is the very do patient - he since I think they don't put a lot of his time about running and car and and develop through the car so as you can you can ring you in the middle of the night and I have an idea you should do that than this so it's not easy in it Argentina will be a tough engineering challenge for FX and Petter to keep clear of those notorious car wrecking rocks then decided to raise the car what is for them a massive 50 millimeters higher than atomic rally raising the ride height raises the car center of gravity making it more difficult to handle so it's very hard to find a fast settle delighted to find that FX has two sources of information to work with first he has the data that's downloaded from sensors in the car whether tempeh tilapia it's moved on since Lucy's day but they can control everything you know when I started running there was nothing at each you know there was no everything was much more mechanical there were no no no computers will give mobile phone yes but now I wonder what will happen if you one day you have to do a rally now with no computers no mobile phones I think we stay at home well FX is most reliable sensor in the car it's passes backside if you move the seat in the car that email limit there are two millimeter I feel it because this is my job and I it's the only thing I can do you know I'm good at and this is already you know it's all about feeling better is never short of feedback and ideas because beam up the font maybe you have to go back on the rail you know you have to have a good memory and and write very quickly because otherwise you miss 50% of this feedback effects must also learn patches unique way of communicating sign language he's doing pretty well but what better likes most about his new engineer is that he prioritizes what better wants over the computer data you know some of the engineer we learn will kill me if they hit that but I think in the end of the day an app it rather with nothing that we able to do in the first time I'm not the easiest guy to work is maybe but I just wanted right and we have a lot of discussions and no bad feelings that's how it is we just want the car to go quickly [Music] point three but recent arrival yakety it's going well the team has chosen the tread the rubber compounds and the construction of the tires Pirelli have their orders and we'll deliver 110 handmade ties to Argentina in four weeks time better is confident he has a fast car but going quicker hasn't been Subarus problem this year it's been their reliability and Petters last run of the day issues a stark reminder of how easily could all go wrong a rock has been thrown up underneath the car striking the suspension he's here on the left either way it looks like we had a direct impact from the rock alert on a truck controller so that's basically the truck control number which you don't want really this kind of damage during a rally would put Petter out of the running but it's left the team wondering if they need to raise the car even higher and sacrifice yet more speed but time has run out [Music] [Music] welcome to South America's cowboy country great on horseback but a real car record especially at speeds topping 200 kilometers per hour rocks ruts jumps rivers there's a hundred different ways to ruin your day rally Argentina can shake a car to bits sixty-eight cars ranging from the top teams to local amateurs will compete 22 time stages in total 350 kilometers over three and a half days of competition between stages the drivers travel on public roads with a mr. Bay normal traffic laws the road sections aren't competitive but there is a maximum time allowed before incurring time penalties twice a day the cars return to Cordoba for repairs the team service park is based in the fairy art exhibition halls on the outskirts of Cordoba here the team has its workshop areas and control center one-room houses the engineers where they'll monitor and assess the car's performance in another the management will make the strategic decisions one of these men has special reason to be nervous director of engineering Steve Farrell has been working hard on the reliability of the car and making sure it can withstand the challenges of Argentina it's rough there are stones as dust we've got to try to keep that out over the radiator we've got to keep it out of the clutch keep it out of the engine and and that's a big challenge there are different air filters there are different radiator grilles but have scrapers that they keep the rocks out of the calipers and we have to have that that balance of that car that's going to be fast but survivable over 350 kilometres it's an awfully harsh environment really and Steve knows these valleys hold another hazard the infamous water splashes six years I was flat out 150 kilometres now or whatever it's effectively like hitting a brick wall two years ago this brick walls stopped Subaru in their tracks [Music] when the car entered the water splash ended up with a huge amount of water entering into the ducts here for the radiator the state of the car after was look like a bomb had gone off inside really move the whole front and everything else went really had they blew the intercooler and the radiator backwards and the bonnet up obviously something was wrong exiting the water splash the car caught fire and was too seriously damaged to continue when Subaru second car suffered a similar fate Steve knew it wasn't just a fluke we damaged both cars actually so it was designed consistency but as a failure for both cars which is obviously it's not finishing a rally is a disaster back in the UK the team had to find out exactly what happened so they hired a country estate and created their own water splash we actually got a figure in got the ramp angles right and there was there was a stream and we dammed up the stream and we spent days trying to replicate the problem the culprit was the impresses low aerodynamic shape designed to produce lots of downforce through a river crossing it acted like a scoop but Steve didn't want to change the car shape losing downforce would slow it down basically we went into making a really much more rigid strong robust radiator package cables to hold everything in place cables further down here and actually a third mounting point for the components as well I am as confident as one can be in any engineering world that we've licked the problem and hopefully water splashes will go out of our vocabulary and and we won't talk about it again for years all the work the team has done to improve the reliability of the car is about to be put to the test shakedowns for our practice session is the last chance to uncover any problems and its last chance for Petter the perfectionist to tweak his car setup [Music] last year Petter finished third behind second-place marcus grönholm this year Marcus moved to Ford and its wholly redesigned car [Music] last year's winner was Sebastien Loeb this year he's driving his Citroen Zara for the Belgian Cronos team [Music] all three drivers know that conditions will be different this year last year's rally was run in the wax of the Argent's and in winter April here is dryer dusty and rocky after their person rums it's clear the conditions are even rougher than any of them expected what are the successes that that cellphone are mr. Gallagher if you care I don't really know how approach how to approach with a video for because it's the first time and I'm here but it's very loose and rocky and it's quite quite rough in fact it's so rough the Subarus engineers want to make a radical last-minute change after three days fine-tuning their setup in Sardinia with just six hours to go before the rally starts the engineers want to raise the ride height again they simply can't afford to risk another retirement we decided to run the car another ten millimeter higher front and rear Petter reluctantly agrees and heads out for its final practice room defying all engineering logic better posts his fastest time of the morning it's all about the confidence it may be wrong but if I like it that's another but when it comes to the real thing mind over matter may not be enough to defeat the great car record [Music] each morning the technicians have just ten minutes to prepare the cars before the drivers head out to the stages [Music] but the engineers are still debating the most important decision of the morning retires they have four rubber compounds to choose from ranging from hard to soft to suit different conditions this morning stages are in the Sierra Chico's Hills to the northwest of Cordoba the stages are mainly soft and sanded it but a few hard rocky sections make the tire choice more difficult and the weather is a big factor which is why Subarus had a weatherman out in the hills since dawn this morning when we got here there was no cloud so everything was looking nice and dry now it's changed to full cloud light rain in the air hopefully by half-past eight when the stage runs it still will be dry one set of tires must last for all the morning stages so cardis got to predict the conditions for the next four hours the main thing is that cloud if it rains it'll make the stages completely different to what we've anticipated [Music] assuming the dry weather holds the team has two choices a fast choice or a safe choice for Petter it's an easy decision he's going for the fast choice a medium compound but he'll have to use all his skill and experience to preserve the rubber on the hard rocky sections we know exactly what would be over always open need to be for better so we'll take a performance view on that and then better takes his decision with the engineers and Pirelli and then we clear this fella clean cut but when it comes to the teams number 2 driver 26 year old Australian Chris Atkinson this trouble Paul Lewis want Chris to played safe but the young hotshots simply not having it the new team bosses are facing their first meeting [Music] Chris Atkinson and his co-driver Glenn McNeil are competing in rally Argentina for only the second side whether in no mood to take things slow I can study near lasty returns at the heart our own events follow me they want the same medium compound tire aspetta the fastest option for the conditions they disagree but with just minutes to go before they have to leave for the stages they're having to fight for it the two Karthik this strategy is not about speed if their push of that hill the new team bosses Paul and Luis Chris's priorities to gain experience going for a solid reliable finish they wanted to take the safer choice a more durable hard compound into there's no winners in debt that went into this intelligence with professionals for a medicinal issue that's why I'm asking you but Chris is still sticking his neck out for what he wants with the clock ticking he now just has seconds left to plead his case finally promising Paul he'll look after the robber Chris gets what he wants the medium tires so its drivers 1 new bosses bill 65 kilometers away Sebastien Loeb is first onto the stages the rest of the field follows at two-minute intervals [Applause] Loubs tire choice was the toughest as first on the road he gets the worst of the loose gravel and acts as a sweeper clearing the path for all the other drivers [Applause] that's what can happen even if you will champion the spin cost low 22 seconds leaving petrified markers drawn home for the early lead in the control room the team tracked the exact movements of the cars using a GPS system the system gives section by section times for every driver as they race through each stage and with radio and mobile phones they can communicate with their drivers and co-drivers the weather's holding patches tire choice is looking good and despite the last-minute ride height change he's fast he finishes the stage eight seconds in the lead next stage and pet is still fine that's what a sideswipe from a gate post that ninety kilometers an hour looks like fills quickly back into his rhythm but his door is dented and his window is smashed blowing dust and grit into the cockpit where your rivals are hard on your heels a little air comes not gonna slow you down grown homes just three seconds behind and Loeb just twenty another stage another collision a rock is punctured the right way Argentina is living up to its reputation as a car record [Music] today's River puncture the tie is not just been punctured it's totally blown apart it's ripped through the carbon fiber body work and may have broken vital components Pat's its number one technician John McClain is straight on the phone with medical with a detailed rundown he can plan the major repairs the car needs the puncture has cost Pettis six seconds dropping him from first to third place and by the time he arrives at time control he's had another puncture he's driven nearly 40 kilometers back to the service park on the river a frustrating morning leaves better wondering whether Pirelli bad luck or just pushing too hard has let him down half the bed state he so I don't know if the tire wasn't looking at the damage it's clear that the choice of medium compound rubber was not to blame this was a fight to the death between Italian tires and Argentine rocks and the rocks one now it's the mechanics versus the clock John's team is just 30 minutes to turn this wreck back into a rally winner [Music] radiators are cleared of sand metal is coming back into shape and the damaged doors are replaced it's already a busy morning for spares man charlie and when the radio no damage but it broke the window for me [Music] in service center windows judge bill Charlie's brought hundreds of spare parts but he's counting on not needing any more doors because he's only brought soon I've been doing this part of the job for five years now and got away with hope - announcer see how they come back as easily don't translate on the straight down Laura girls and way to repair bodywork on a 600,000 euro rally car Subaru blue duct tape get that gun away the bodywork is the right Petty's car is fitted with hard compound tires for this afternoon's hotter drier stages turn the back jack and go on the floor pendant clean clean lovely well done girls with allegedly 15 seconds to spare service is complete the afternoon stages begin with la falda one of the most hazardous stages of the rally [Music] it's high speed jokes and tight corners are an extreme test of the toughness above car and driver destroyed your car I mean you have to go on and see if to experience it even on television it looks a bit rough but honestly you would do 25 miles an hour on this road here in their car thinking that was wrecking it and these guys are real underdone 25 of the cam so she was numeracy [Music] the whole team and nervous as the stage also has the rally's most spectacular river crossings including the water splash the destroyed patches car in 2004 [Music] it had seen the stones and extreme low continually pin stones or no stones Petter knows exactly how he's planned to drive here this way is flat-out that is sad for me it's the best way is all the way thousands of spectators have lined the banks all hoping to see the water claim another victim [Music] [Music] loaves through drug homes through patches determined not to satisfy the ground his boots to the floor [Music] relief all round it so hilly means no worries yeah you haven't seen the Lion King have you but on the next stage the Argentinian rally claims its first high-profile victim Ron home stole his car and can't get him back into gear engine stalled on how we can afford a car I thought when they made happy to say he's taking a bit of trouble today this is for its peanuts without you events now something else is on see Sebastian Loeb inherits the lead and Petter moves into second place at the end of day one better maybe 20 seconds behind Loeb but as he limps into the service park with yet another puncture he's unexpectedly upbeat very close from Tibet Daniel good only place it goes with two days of competition still to go that's an achievable target [Music] let's has been up since 5:00 he's running on pure adrenaline Petter is a very competitive person if you tell him to run 10k 3 times a week he'll run 15k seven times a week so we have to be very strict on Petter slow down take it easy right now go and have a rest go and have a break he's drunk about seven liters today and any water whatsoever so he's breathing I dated and his day isn't finished yet as one of the top three drivers he's expected at a press conference missed the 7 o'clock deadline an ill incur a 5,000 euro fine meanwhile Pettus team set to work on the huge job of rebuilding his car again they've got their work cut out but at least they know what they're dealing with number two driver Chris Atkinson has had a strange day no problems with his hard-won tyres but a mysterious handling problem has left him off the pace and down the field and his engineers working late replaying the entire day's onboard camera footage searching for a solution ghost in the machine or in Chris's head [Music] at least both the Subarus has survived the first day more than can be said of either of their main rivals Loubs teammate pons is out grown homes out and full second driver Mikko Hirvonen has also retired with engine failure it all adds up to the best first day of a rally that Subaru have had all year it seems big shake-up seems to be paying off the Mori Seiki kidding we have to try to go for Sebastian and I'm pretty confident that we're going to get [Music] Saturday morning and the games changed overnight there's been a thunderstorm and heavy rain the day is going to be very very long yesterday was 45 percent of the rally today is another 45 percent and tomorrow is a temperature and left you know so if we don't do the job today it would be hard to do it tomorrow once again passes fate lies in his choice of tires teams must judge it the weather will clear and allow the roads to dry out or if the rain is likely to return rally leader Loeb bets on rain and ops for the softest Razzie has better Gamble's on the weather clearing and goes for mediums with just 19 seconds between them pet is counting on his tire choice to give him an edge to chase low down [Music] it's stayin dry and halfway through the first stage pet has already made up 3 seconds but before he can really attack he's got something else to deal with while changing gear Pettis paddle-shift has broken off in his hands yes nothing's broken with this carbons failed is broken off that all he's left with is a small piece and without that the car won't change gear but your stare at the water splash probably gonna join make something make a Leever maybe some of them feel old mole grips or use some cable ties hose clips taped it and tie wrap it and hopefully it will last with patches fix in place he continues to the second stage of the morning but now the weather is deteriorating and the drivers are complaining a poor visibility [Music] with his medium tires pettish struggles to find grip on the increasingly slippery surface his Gamble has failed by the time he returns to the service part he's lost another 40 seconds he's still in second place but now nearly a whole minute behind blown I think he's all bent out the tire choice this morning the stages were a lot more there's a lot more modernist stages and expected we lost some time with it basically they may be putting on a brave face but with only a quarter of the rally left sir race it's a huge setback [Music] with eight stages to go betta has left himself with a massive challenge to get his first one of the season here in Argentina this afternoon the cars head to a new set of stages to the south of the service park conditions will be totally different from this morning on these fast flat roads the sensible way for petals dried now will be to get the car home safely and claim second place but Petter doesn't do sensible the car feels good and he goes for maximum attack his plan is to try to pressure low into making a mistake with both drivers and their teams watching each other's times it's become a mind game Petter pushes low responders but a single mistake could cost either driver the rally stage after stage Petter reals Loeb in second-by-second he narrows the gap that's a wind stage 16 17 and 18 and by the end of the day he's made up 17 seconds it's not been enough to make rallies iceman crap but for the first time this year petter is in his element that's what he lives for it looks to be in the car and if isn't one with a car then they will be nothing this is getting the stage tanks it comes back to service and other funds want to see him and it is it is where he wants to be and that is like because they can I can't do anything more with the dumpers it's right here on it Ron Vicki oh my this one I can't lean it bit more over the right oh yeah yeah everything that is white but like it is it was now i earlier is the best you know it's a roller coaster isn't it really English doesn't have the right word for a day like today I guess you have to be satisfied to a certain level with today but Happy's Happy's when you are winning every stage easily then I will probably be happy not until then Sunday morning the final day of the rally that is a massive 43 seconds behind Loeb but it's not over yet because both drivers still have to negotiate the highest toughest stages of the rally thousands of fans have camped overnight along the route of these famous stages I've been on the moon there's massive big rock faces and through the mountains a 2,000 feet above sea level el Condor is the rally's highest point and a place where nature destroys man's machines a lot of people have paid a big price in these stages a lot of big stones got pulled out the rally is not over by far not no without them stairs out of the way in Argentina they call this around but even here there's no way pets is easing off helos the gap to just 32 seconds but time is running out because the last two stages are just two kilometers long in the Cordoba football stadium sebastien low simply has to drive it home leaving Petter to claim second and despite never solving its mystery handling problems Chris brings it home in 6e after that disastrous start to the season gets in two cars to the finish is a great results for the team's new bosses we've delivered the speed against Sebastian Marcos liability Rika very strong no problems at all in a very very tough event every lot of the diamonds lot of people better penalties we've been very strong all the way through is back in the fight life goes on without his old mentor he's rediscovered his confidence in himself in the car and his new rock team [Music] it was a rally in which Petter was the fastest but Argentina the car wrecker through the works as him a gate post the rocks are broken gearshift punctures and ultimately one wrong tire choice were the difference between victory and second place [Music] it's been very interesting if we didn't have any other problems so boundary can forward to the next next we grow all this because things are looking very good for pizza second place is never going to be good enough just as well he's a man that never stops he never gives up [Music] [Music] halfway through a grueling season the World Rally Championship throws up its toughest test yet a double challenge the smooth treacherous tarmac of Germany rough high-speed gravel of Finland between them just two days and a two thousand kilometer - over land and sea but one team this is the chance that was a miserable six months behind them this is the way we start the season they put a decent show into the rest of the year we can they mask the both surfaces and take the rough with the smooth I'll keep it up it's a tough way to start a comeback [Music] [Music] [Music] Subaru driver Petter Solberg's goal this year was to regain the world championship he won in 2003 his new Impreza should have set the world alight from the start the car surf and reliability problems since then Petter has been trying to squeeze more performance out of the car to catch his rivals the superfast Frenchman Sebastien Loeb driving a Citroen and the experienced fin bugs Granholm in his ford so far Petter has managed to wrestle his car to just two second places now the team is going all-out let's take the next step to start winning so an eight week break between rallies in the middle of the season has been no summer holiday for Subaru instead team boss Paul howarth has been pushing everyone hard rebuilding testing and improving the car changes have been made to the suspension brakes and roll cage and component redesign has allowed a massive 35 kilos to be shifted around the car lowering its center of gravity improving handling but will this complete overhaul bring success in the double challenge ahead two paired rallies two days apart they call it a back-to-back first smooth ride Germany one of the only poor tarmac events in the season it's fast technical and in the wet treacherous then the rough Finland the spiritual home of rallying run on hard gravel tracks lined with trees it's the fastest and most dangerous rally in the county before they leave England the engineers must prepare for both chassis and engine will be the same for both rallies but the trucks are also stuffed with brakes suspension engine fuelling parts and tires dedicated to each surface it's also a double challenge for the drivers Chris Atkinson Subaru number-two driver grew up on the dirt tracks of Australia's Gold Coast but he's learning fast how to handle the black steel different the gravel pouring it's all about crossover tree brake pressure and steering as you come into the corner to advise you breaking in a straight line generally break pressure then you increase the steering angle turn in the your exit on the throttle like that it's all about split-second timing into moments and get it wrong and move the to slow we had gone see Germany the roads wrongly his wife doesn't leave much room for error Subarus top test driver Terry kV thinks gravel is all about confidence Grover once the car starts moving around on the loose surface you do need the confidence to know just how far the car will slide and if you're doing speeds in excess of 150 kilometers an hour you know all of that was very fast [Music] get away mr. difficulty commencement of the corresponding [Music] the big difference from Tama is the tiny adjustments made all the way through the corner judged by the seat of your pants [Music] two very different driving techniques two different mindsets for the drivers but they can only succeed in the double challenge ahead if the Tings engineers have really solved the problems with this year's car with two rallies on totally different surfaces just two days apart the super intimidating face part one of the challenge the smooth tarmac of June the rally is running the valleys around the Mosel River three days and 350 kilometers of time stages on closed roads between stages they must keep to speed limits on public roads and total driver 1,800 kilometers before the end of the rally at midday on Sunday hot song favorite to win here is world champion and tarmac King Sebastian Loeb he loves the service and has won here four times Pecha has won 13 World rallies but only wall on tarmac like most Scandinavian drivers he learned to drive on slippery forest trails and feels more at home on gravel but he's hoping in the 8 weeks of intensive redesign and testing will give him a chance to change that on issues tarmac rally Subaru have drafted an ex Formula One driver Stefan Saladin his experience in circuit racing should give her an advantage here but his last three rallies have been disappointing Germany is the final tarmac event of the year so this could be Stefan's last chance to establish himself in the sport team boss Paul Howarth is impatient for better results we wants to be in the top five we want to be closer reducing the gap between the citizens and the Fords on this surface today's shakedown the for our practice session is a last chance to fine-tune the cars although there are no points at stake rivalry between the drivers means they all want to get the fastest time as expected low post the quickest time of the morning on the three and a half kilometer course but more surprising is that Petter is only two hundredths of a second behind him well everybody else has decided to drive through slowly or we are closer to the opposition we have done a lot of work in the last two months and the team have been absolutely on their head to make improvements and feels like a looks like we have them done some good ones for once it looks as though passes Impreza may have the legs too much lobe on his own surface petit goes out but 130 kilometers an hour better is hit a tree incredibly both Petter and co-driver Phil mills are unhurt but the car looks like a write-off on gravel we can get away with many things so well don't I'm like everything has to be right [Music] pets must wait for the engineers to decide whether they can repair the car in time for the start now just sixteen hours away Paul decides to go for it he orders a new engine to be rushed from HQ in England but it won't arrive until the evening a one o'clock in the afternoon the technicians start to strip the car down the damaged body shell is straightened out rally style the shell is squeezed beaten and cut back into shape by a 20 man relay to the evening before the rally it's the all-star drive through the better and fill in to walk through that's 11:40 p.m. just 11 hours before Petter is due on the start line the engine arrives altogether 89 major components are replaced at 3 o'clock in the morning with 5 hours to spare the car is ready the exhausted technicians have worked 350 man-hours but if this were your local garage you'll be getting a bill for at least fourteen thousand euros pause faith that his technicians has been rewarded against all the odds Petter as a car to start the rally it's not bad actually it's a few hundred percent so the only problem is that we didn't have the same geometry that we had on the shakedown yesterday and that's already says I need you're just a car a little bit this morning weather always plays a big part in rally but especially on tarmac rain concern it's height 100 kilometers an hour bend into a skid pan but today the weather forecasters just can't say for sure where and when it will rain so better decides to play safe and heads for the start of stage one on soft intermediate tyres the changeable weather causes chaos many drives a cause on the wrong tires Loeb sets the pace winning the early stages which club doesn't laughter is big crash better is rebuilding his confidence which climbs to third I do get very very careful yeah I didn't want to take any risk at the wire I need to come back in the rhythm again after what happened yesterday meanwhile saw my expert Stefan's choice of wet weather tires is about call he misses the showers and cooks his tires so a very soft car racing soft everything wrong after four stages back at service Stefan can change his tires and his suspension settings to suit the drier than expected weather at the head of the field globe gets a driver owner of the cars willing to nuts apart by the time step and comes through it's been raining again morning wet ties in the dry and an afternoon of slicks in the wet leaves Subarus tarmac man down in 10th place at the end of leg one in contrast gravel man Peter in his hastily rebuilt car has got his confidence back and is in fifth place [Music] day to the German our ally is run to the south of the service park of narrow military roads the rain has gone and tire choices will be much easier today by the open from the stars patches closing on the leaders - a five I'm gonna fix like that no but it was too good to last 5/7 I put it on supervision bill we stopped them [Music] it looks like an engine failure but we never say that until we actually inspect the engine and find out what's gone wrong cover it sounds terminal Petters engine failure leaves team boss Paul with a decision to make option one work like crazy to fit a new engine take a massive time penalty and re-enter the rally with no chance of a good result or choose to retire the car and have a whole extra day to prepare for one of Pettus favorite rallies of the year we don't want to retirement thomas no but it's actually give us a bit of a jump start it means now we can spend the next day and a half preparing fattest car for Finland although Petty's rally has been ended by component failure he's encouraged by the performance leap in the car many of the things that we have done in the car before before this valiant for Finland has improved a lot so I'm quite positive now actually technicians can look forward to their second engine change in 48 hours there we go a new engine could about nine o'clock tonight a midnight issue again quite used to that master when the new engine arrives the nightshift clock on again the last leg of rally Germany is deliberately sure to allow the team's time to pack up and get on the road to Finland as the cars leave the service part for the last time the drivers are just 68 competitive kilometers from the finish after a better second day Stephane Sarrazin is now eight he's just four stages left to impress the boss but Paul just wants him to bring the car back in one piece meanwhile Ken Reese is starting his own race against the clock we start in this pack up now for next few hours but also the bad is ongoing so we have to looking after the cars as well and monitoring all that so it's quite a busy time although Ken now has the entire 60 person team under his command in just four hours to pack up the entire circus workshops catering units spare parts and of course the cars themselves into the seven waiting trucks by exactly 1:30 this afternoon they must start the two thousand kilometer drive to Finland so the writings focused on the pack up it's hard to believe there's a rally going on only kin is left to keep an eye on Stefan 40 kilometers to the south he's pushing hard to get 7th place well the gearbox is not what the doctor ordered [Music] Loeb wins rally Germany making five wins here out of five so there's a big hole in the side of here Bob Station will know there's no champagne for Subaru you don't know if the wheels are still still spare and Stefan tries to explain the mistake I went to straight on on the murder gone out and I lost my release on it it will be Stefan's last Drive for the team his contract will not be renewed [Music] it's disappointed with enormous as it is good that the result is not what we want to do but the positive side is the amount of effort people willing to put in to take it forward I went in before we got here and the weekends problems aren't over yet now the car transport is broken down batteries have filed on the the ramp unfortunately oh we need to please make it worth 30 crores we're struggling with a jump start from varelli and the two cars on the top deck the convoy is finally ready to move off only 15 minutes late the Subaru team will be glad to see the back of Germany but to have any chance of a good result in Finland they must get the cars and 85 tons of spares and equipment to Rostov the ferry port in just 12 hours it's the first leg of a two thousand kilometer endurance race no speeding no room for a single wrong turn and there's only one ferry to Finland tomorrow and they've got to be on it same for over Duke [Music] the convoy arrives at the ferry port with an hour to spare the trucks embark and seven tired drivers can get their heads down the journey from Rostock to hanko in finland will take 24 hours Fairy doesn't birth until 7 a.m. on Tuesday just two days before the start of rally Finland [Music] the rally has been held in the forests around the town of avascular in southern Finland for over 50 years tarmac rallies like journey a high-speed events because of the smoother surface but surprisingly the hard packed gravel trails and long straights of Finland are even faster it's so fast that the locals call it the Finnish Grand Prix every year thousands of spectators head into the forest to get close to the action keeping them safe from the hurtling rally cars is a priority to the organisers sepal Haiyan was once a flying failing as co-driver for Tommi makinen he won the Finnish Rally amazing in at times so he knows every meter of every stage like the back of his hand now he uses his experience to police the 22 stages that make up the rally the car will pass this place here about 160 kph and if anything goes wrong here it's not gonna stop in the first stone or all three the true police fans do get over enthusiastic seeing their cars passing they want to see them close a little bit close so we have to push the back Seppo drives every meter of the 350 kilometers to make sure that there will be enough marshals on dangerous bends and jumps [Music] [Applause] then all that keeps the spectators from the road is a thin strip of plastic tape it's the last lap of the journey the trucks arrive hanko docks and there's just a five hour drive to go the rest of the team have flown from Germany and awaiting anxiously in avascular for the convoy to arrive normally they have four or five days to get the cars ready but not on a back-to-back potatoes me I don't know got me normally yeah I'll people have a few phone calls I would say they're far away ahead much more yeah lovely you've got to go have you heard from at last after 2,000 kilometres and two days the convoy arrives in e Baskins [Music] when now get everything wash get it parked up get the big structure up ready for the cars go underneath and then just start setting okay finish probably so near midnight tonight almost the kilometer of aluminium beams are bolted and slotted together and like a giant Construction Set slowly transform into the control rooms technical areas canteen and VIP entertainment and of course the huge tent that will cover the workshop area for the rally cars tomorrow the engineers have just one day to turn to broken tarmac cars into high speed gravel rally winners part two of the double challenge with one day left to go before the rally camp Subaru is ready for inspection hope you see the audience up now in the hospitality area is now being finished up inside in the middle here we go sort of boxes and containers which shouldn't be moved in the setup bed put in there the engineering offices function at the back and I laughs oh that's work in the team Serbia I'd say 85% of the way there overnight bike replacement parts have arrived this is just arrived from England we got shipped out last minute due to our last rally we on break free of the boxes there's about three or four hours worth of work maybe five convert I'd director of engineering Steve Farrell is overseeing the changeover of cars from smooth tarmac settings to rough gravel in the World Rally Championship has got great variation in venues but that's probably the biggest contrast really and there are many things that get changed on the cars to adapt to the different conditions ride heights so the car here will run about 30 to 40 millimeters higher than in Germany it has to absorb bumps here so we've got tend to have softer Springs you have different damping rates to allow for the impacts especially here where we have a lot of jumps although there's still a question mark of the reliability of this car the improved performance in Germany is giving Petter a real hope that he can win the Finnish Rally it's always a little bit nervous of course and they're thinking a lot about the setup and because we have done a lot with the car so I see yeah I see a light in a tunnel now it's no doubt but Petter faces tough competition here local knowledge is crucial so apart from the world champion Petty's main rivals will come from the four teams to finish drivers marcus grönholm has one here four times before and teammate Mikko Hirvonen lives just up the road but the finns being fast here is a matter of personal honor you've got a stage records he recognized as being the boy you know really so they gave it wound up more than they don't get wound up normally but here they do like to see this big dog should I say [Music] Steve is taking it personally to determined to draw a line under the worst first half of a season subaru have ever had we have done an awful lot of work over the last two months and I think and we all think that we've made some good progress but the ultimate test is getting out and then seeing what stage times you are compared to everybody else this is for me here you know ground zero this is where you knows where we start the season and I think put a decent show in for the rest of the year at shakedown its first one to run home top dog on the two kilometers stage but the real showdown starts tomorrow the real the real measure will be the first stage in the morning nice long stage to bed the men and we'll find out where we are from that stage Petter heads off for the first stage of the day time to find out how he and his car really match up to the flame Finn's in their thoughts ahead of him and the other 100 drivers are 347 kilometres of competitive stages its dogfight time former co-driver Lewis Moyer was the first non Scandinavians win the Finnish rally back in 1990 now he brings his knowledge of his stages to the Subaru control room I did this his first estates for the first time in 1988 and then it has been ever since in the running he's been here it's a long a farm and it's was quite it's almost straight no it's an open rolling and then when you don't left that's me in the forest and on driving the average speed is 126 kilometers an hour [Music] Paul Lewis and can usually follow the drivers progress on screen as a GPS tracker is fitted to every car for this morning there's a glitch but Ken's got a back-up plan and tells his whether crews get out some good old-fashioned stop watches as the first car was passed they said to watch every corner sometimes you can beat the old system manual the flying fins get off to a flying start Marcus wins the life of our stage with Mikko Hirvonen second better is a close third Rumaki is only 7 kilometers long but has in spades what rally Finland is famous for enormous jobs somewhere along here there are three consecutive jumps maki has been very famous it's a lot of people that go there the crowds are gathering to watch the big jumps but hundreds of camped out in the forest and have been drinking all night just eight minutes before the stage starts safety coordinators seppo hyeyeon is worried and sends out safety cars to clear the stage this was a little bit risky people the young people with avid bottle on that morning in less than four minutes marcus grönholm will be screaming through at nearly two hundred kilometers an hour if any of the drunken fans strains the road that will be a disaster [Applause] time to call in the helicopter if the helicopter doesn't clear the road the stage will have to be canceled just in front of the first rally car the final safety car drives the stage at full speed it's the last warning the stage is finally cleared and the helicopter follows the first car up the line [Music] over the big jumps brew ìmake blood home stretches his lead Moby second with Petter just 2.3 seconds behind halfway through the day it's back to the vascular for a 45-minute service as the technicians race to services car Petter is anxious to get his afternoon tire choice right based on a forecast from Ken that the stages will dry out he's let's hard compound tires with cups for extra grip Philip thank you the next group of stages contains some of the most bone-crunching jumps in motorsport literally last year - co-drivers suffered crack vertebrae from hard landings here this year no bones are broken but the cars of suffering the enormous jumps are testing chassis and suspension and the lethal mix of high speed mud and loose dirt wreaks havoc Petter gets caught behind a damaged car and loses time at the end of the first day only 86 101 starters are still running Ronnie Finland is taking no Christmas oh boy it was so sleepy so sleepy I mean wait incredible because they are the harder tires also any time of these but no way whatsoever though all very talk the peasant finishes leg one in fourth he's struggling to keep up the flying fins but with a day and a half left he's still in the chase meanwhile Chris actin some Subarus regular number two driver has got his car back after lending it to step out for Germany he's at a good day driving consistently fast and finishing sixth Petter reviews the day with his engineer FX he senses something's not right with a handling in fast corners changes over the summer have made a difference but it's not quite enough to try and squeeze a fraction more performance from the cars they both get a gearbox change there's enough cause for optimism it's an encouraging day but really we haven't really done as well as we should have some of the things we can sort out tomorrow the rest of its in the in the sky where the fools at the moment the scene is clear sky 14 degrees so it's gonna be a dry day it's an early start and the team are determined to push for a result with the car on the limit the gap will have to be made up by patters driving ability Paul's set him its first target to get back third place we need to catch Mika he's on his own event so not be easily rattled so we just have to push him and see Chris arrives for the 10-minute routine service allowed at the start of each day but just seconds before you to leave his technicians hit a problem they've run out of gas used to pressurize the gearbox hydraulics Chris's engineer Richard Thompson takes control if Chris doesn't get out on time he'll get a heavy time penalty yeah I know it is late look later is late [Music] he leaves three minutes late and gets a 30-second penalty not the start of the day they wanted I'll go anonymously it's not a part failure the late nights have caught up with the exhausted technicians this time it's down to human error when the transmission technician went to recast the system his gas bottle was empty we had to then run around and try and find a solution for reducing the accumulator we used a welding bottle the trouble with that that the bottle pressure wasn't high enough so this morning the gas pressure and Chris's gearbox is something like 15 bar when it should be a tea barn as a result of that it'll probably miss a couple of gears on the on the loop so on top of his 30 second penalty Christmas now drive the morning stages with a dodgy gearbox if the transmission doesn't change the gear he's suddenly going to neutral at 200 kph it's really quite serious this needs to be careful he needs to kind of use his brain a little bit and just try and try and drive safely and get to the exit to the corner before he change his gear chris is using all his driving skill to battle with the failing box but he's slowing all the time petter starts two minutes behind him and is gaining fast the gear change is getting worse than 15 kilometers into the state Chris isn't able to select ears at all [Applause] [Music] the team are worried with Chris stopped in the middle of a fast straight better could run into the back of his car Chris manages to select a gear and moves out of the way [Music] Beth is going to pass pages on a charge and has already hit his first target of snatching third place river stage 9 53.1 253 one chris is now locked in third gear and faces two more stages before midday swords petrol filler on their way to the next stage despite a fast time Petter is still worried about the handling at high speed do the same again yeah how much of that is tires better John is not placed on that stuff though yeah no I can't feel efficacy well done anyway nice Drive they're heading for on in polar the most feared stage in World Rally all over the states there are jumps in these states and that is one which is the most thing was jumping in world early championship which is a jump that they do arrive in sixth gear probably a hundred and eighty kilometers an hour and the organizers the always put marks after the jump to see how who jumps better it's world rallies long jump contests love the names of the previous drivers the furthest and inside the rod it's quite impressive but the main thing is that you just have to judge okay this time flat out and you jumping farm but you keep the speed up it's closer to flying and drive petal hasta spoiler here last year but somehow miraculously got the car back on the road I think it's probably the most difficult stage in a wall on a championship pattern is the fastest man Adam over on in polar two years ago we broke the stage record with an average speed of a hundred and thirty kilometers Larry got six ice - autograph I was incredible and even I get my hair going up up from arms when we have to take your brain out then leave it the service air and and and then go and take the stage this year the drivers do their best to beat the 50 for me to jump record cars take off from the big crest jumping up to five meters off the ground this is rally driving for real men Petter starts the stage with his sights on second place starting now Luis 15 it's just two minutes in a turn and start to think about once more the team attaches to get Chris off the road to get better a clear room Chris pulls over but Petter doesn't pass him 40 [Music] to speed up [Music] first thing I always think miser Cruz you know when the said have gone off you're near one of them men you know more information at the is a gap between game we've gone on everything some more information minutes at that time it's the time after they say they've gone off because you don't know back see but I think of anything else you can you can build new castles so and you know here the speed of the event and when somebody says it's gone off yet you know it's a big accident [Music] Etta's cars rolled four times but miraculously x' missed the trees better and filler shocked but unhurt to Sacramento yet breath patters flown back in the safety helicopter as soon as he returns he refused the accident when I was inside in the car I was thinking of hopefully nothing hits me inside the car and I was stuck to the steering wheel very hard so luckily everything worked okay the drivers got something to hang on to the co-drivers got nothing so the best thing you can do is make yourself into a little ball hope for the best yeah you don't get much time to think about it anyway that's for sure as soon as the car is recovered its hidden away behind the service area the engineers and bosses are quick to start the postmortem there's no question of repair although Pettus first thought have been to try the engine safety rules dictate that if the roll cage is damaged the car cannot be repaired Pettus rally is over Steve Farrell knows that the performance of the car is improved but Pettis crashes perhaps the clearest measure of how much more there is to do I think we all accept that we've got a performance deficit to the other cars and that sometimes he tries to make up that deficit himself and largely he does and largely gets away with it we are maybe pushing a little bit too much comparable to should but sometimes this is no limit but today is also I fully accept the driver of that competitive nature even if they haven't got the equipment to finish first are still going to attempt almost the impossible and in doing that we're actually forcing him to drive beyond the limits of the car and and that clearly is going to be you know he is to have having to take more risks [Music] well I guess I just want to say a couple of words with you here now sorry for what happened that's always really trying very hard makes a better may sound like he's apologizing but like Steve he feels that ultimately the engineering of the car is to blame many many kilometres so when you do for example 12 15 kilometers something changes in the car and I don't know what it is everybody do mistakes I did it today and you will look to prepare the car again thank you guys meanwhile Chris's gearbox problem loses in 15 minutes the rest of his event is used to test setups for the next rally in Japan [Music] marcus grönholm wins rally finland with a massive forty second lead over Sebastien Loeb the double challenge is over it hasn't been the glorious comeback the team at hope for but poor can find plenty of positives the biggest motivation in the moment is that all the boys in the team and the girls come to win you know it says bigger parts of it for them is for the drivers and what they're seen over the last two events is actually performance that is motivating them so they know if it all comes together we will get the result I don't think that today's accident has made me rethink our strategy we're going to take more risks in order to in order to get the performance level of the car well frankly in order to win before the end of the year what's the alternative is to say we'll hang on let's let's just finished third for a little while that's not a strategy you know for being in a in a competition I certainly couldn't do it personally and I think that's the accepted stance from everybody we're just going to keep pushing and pushing and pushing when the floodgates open listen this happened so many times before you go through these dry spells and when he opens it all comes together the cars right the drivers right the teams right and it just it'll work but with Rally Japan just 14 days away the time to get it right is running out on their home rally the bosses at Subaru have their pride at stake [Music]
