Mads Østberg and co-driver Jonas Andersson in Subaru WRC 07 will be doing the first round of WRC 2010, Rally Sweden, first coming weekend. Mads has decided to use the WRC 07 instead of the WRC 08, fully supported by the team.

- I am aware that many people will say that this car is outdated and not competitive, but I like it a lot. In my opinion it is a very good car, Mads says. On slippery conditions the diffs on the 07 suits me very well. Jonas and I are both looking very much forward to use it in the rally, and we will do our best to get a good result.       

There have been some ups and downs in connection with preparations for Rally Sweden. On the upside Mads has proved a very good speed with the car. Compared to other drivers and previous stage times on test roads, he has proved that he can be very quick. On the downside there has been some incomprehensible off road incidents.

In previous Norwegian Champion Rally, Mountain Rally, and in a test rally last week, there were several totally equal incidents that could not be explained.

- The rear was snapping out totally unpredictable between series of medium tight corners on several occasions, and I hit the snow bank with the same type of problem many times. The car felt like it was living its own life, Mads comments.

Careful analyses were done, without finding a reasonable cause. On a last test, it was not difficult to provoke the problem to happen again, and by using the elimination method the problem was detected to be centerdiff related.

- It was a relief to find the reason, and solve it. I was a bit frustrating, Mads admits, who starts the reccy from Hagfors this morning, very much looking forward to the competition that starts on Thursday the 11th of February.