Mads Østberg and co-driver Jonas Andersson, in Subaru WRC 06, have been doing Rally Finland this week end.
”I regard this rally as the best in my career so far”, Mads says after having finished 7^th in the rally.

It is not the position Mads is referring to, he has done better positions in WRC rallies in the past, but it is how it happened this time that is the reason for his opinion.   

After a good start where Mads immediately found a good and comfortable speed, they got a puncture on SS 5, and lost almost 3 minutes. “We jumped blind over a curved crest. I could see the stone from the air, but I couldn’t do anything, and landed on it. The rim broke, and we had to stop to change tire. It was really bad luck.”

After the incident the boys dropped from 7^th to 25^th on the list. Recovery started immediately, and Mads and Jonas continued with the same pace on SS6, without letting the puncture disturb focus or commitment.    

After the last stage on Friday, SS11, Mads had advanced from 25^th to 11^th over all. We made a calculation and a strategy that would bring them back to 7^th before the end of the rally. 6th was looking very difficult, but we made a possible strategy even for that.

The difference to Matthew Wilson, who held the 6^th position, was 1 minute and 55 seconds Saturday morning. Saturday started with very good stage times for Mads. It soon became clear that the 7^th position would not be difficult. But he was actually quick enough to make the challenge for 6^th possible. He continued doing that stage after stage.

Matthew became aware that Mads was coming quick, and obviously increased his speed. So did Mads. Unfortunately for us Mads did not make it, 7,1 seconds was the difference up to the 6^th position at the end of the rally. Anyway it was a fantastic recovery from Mads and Jonas, and very interesting when it was going on.  

Generally we are very happy with what happened in Finland. The Subaru WRC 06 that Mads was driving is a very good car. But it is from 06, and 4 generations old compared with the competitors. The difference between Mads and quickest car was nailed at 0,7 – 0,8 sec. pr. km. on every stage all through the rally, until the two latest stages, when Mads did the final attempt to catch up the 6^th place. On the SS18 and SS19 the gap to fastest car was reduced to 0,5 and 0,4 sec. pr. km. There were still hard fights going on in the top, and no one among top 4 was in “Sunday driving mode”.  There has been development been going on since 2006. We allow ourselves to say that everyone with competence to look behind the figures will know that Mads and Jonas did a job and a competition of very high quality during this week end.