Richard Burns has resigned for 2004 & 2005 to replace Tommi Makinen who retires at the end of the year.

thank god subaru will have 2 decent drivers again, what was makinen like................at least subaru didnt do a makinen edition scoob............... an 'old mother hubbard' edition would have been quicker

oooh...I wonder if it will lead to revised "RB" edition scoob if he does well?

Good news but i still would of liked Colin to pair up with Petter.

Huh... never liked burnsy.... COME BACK COLIN!!!!

The King is dead; long live the King!

It will be nice to be cheering for an English driver again :)

Game on!! A great result and well done for Subaru/Prodrive/Fuji etc etc for sorting it...Petter and Richard...lets get the championship next year and we're sorted!!

As long as they make Petter the NO. 1 driver.

mark my words rb will be 2004 champ in the scoob

It's a shame Burnsy has become such a stuck up prat, I was hoping they would sign McRae...

Ah well, like you say, will be good to have a brit in a Subaru again.

Nearly all the Prodrive mechanics I spoke to at the Cyprus Rally wanted Colin back rather than Richard.
But Richards Dad said then, that he would be going back for next year.
A bit of a surprise considering the events that took place in the days leading up to him signing for Peugeot at the end of 2001.

It's more than 2 years since he last won a rally, so he's got his work cut out.

Lets hope that the active suspension that is due soon, puts Subaru back to the top.

David

Maybe Subaru don't have the budget to repair all the cars McRae bends! I once overheard a conversation between two well known WRC team managers who were contemplating if Ford knew what bills they'd let themselves in for when they signed Colin.

Ok but who's leading the championship

I say welcome back Richard

Enjoy it while it lasts. In 2 seasons time the list of WRC rally winners will be an all foreign affair, and will be for many years after. Very sad. Anyone care to name the next British winner of a WRC round without using the surnames of Burns/McRae?

Colin will probably choke at the end of this season and retire to his yacht, and a couple of lacklustre Subaru years in the shadow of Petter will see Burnsie eventually fighting for top 10 places with Gardenmonster and Schwarz in a Daewoo Nubira WRC.

The Subaru/Burns combination looked likely anyway- Peugeot are disappointed with the guy, Citroen is too close to the PSA bone, Ford seem to have realised that spending money on the car rather than superstar wages pays dividends, Mitsi are unproven and behind the door, and Skoda-Hyundai are still third rate and probably couldn't afford him anyway.

Wonder if Petter is quaking in his boots? I doubt it.

Step in the wrong direction,should have signed a young driver with less attitude.Or they could have tried to get Marko Martin back.I think they want Burns for UK marketing reasons.

Glad to have my 2 favourite drivers in my favourite team.

Looking forward to next years races and a lot more victories.

Olly - chris meek for one.

well the scoob is more suited to his driving style than the pug ever was, but he still ain't my favourite guy. would luv to see colin and petter in the scooby camp together, easily my 2 favourite drivers.

any news as to who is replacing burns? my money would be on panizzi for a full works drive, he seems to be improving by the minute at the gravel rallies...

Panizzi's gone to Mitsu, deal's all but done, so you won't get many bookies taking your bet! :D

Glad it's Burns back at Subaru. Don't think Colin's quite had "it" since his Corsica crash. Before that he had the ability to do what Gronholm does now - be that little bit quicker than everyone else without going off too much. Now, if he has to drive flat out, a big accident usually seems to result. The deterioration in the relationship with Grist was a big symptom of him clutching at straws IMO...

Burns and Solberg is a good combination of speed/ambition and consistency, whereas Solberg & McRae would have been combination of speed/ambition and seenitdoneitwouldratherbejetskiinginmonacoalready. ;)

It'll be interesting to see what happens if Solberg proves the quicker over the first few rallies though. I daresay Burns hasn't signed to play dutiful No. 2...

As for Peugeot... All Rovanpera's done this year is prove he can't drive at Burns' pace without putting it in the scenery. However, he gets on well with Marcus and he's reasonably cheap, so he's not out of the running yet. Cedric Robert and Jussi Valimaki are too short of experience generally, and pace on gravel/tarmac respectively to get the recognised No. 2 slot, so who does that leave?

On the assumption Sainz is retained by Citroen, that leaves McRae as the only recognised top-liner without a drive, so something tells me he'll just get punted over the PSA group fence. If I was a betting man though, I might be wondering what Francois Delecour's been up to over the last couple of weeks...

To me the greater interest is in how this stupid "number three driver" rule manifests itself. Could easily end up with a situation where a couple of team's third cars could be driven by more experienced/better paid men than some of the number 1/2's, which surely defeats the object.

Freddy Loix must feel like Christmas came early right now... :rolleyes:

[Edited by greasemonkey - 8/19/2003 5:23:16 AM]

Id disagree on the colin has lost it since his corsica crash statement.

If you watch any of the car to car comparisons on Virtual spectator, esecially over the fast / dangerous big commitment bits, its usually Colin who gains the most time through them. Always has been, and id have though this is where he'd loose time if he's off the boil.

Im not sure what his problem is a the moment, he just seems to be inconsistent. That and his tendancy to crash lots :)

You could see his crash on Finland comming the instant Derek Ringer booked them in early to the TC.

No a big fan of burns, but i hope he starts doing some winning rather than winging on his return to Scooby.

Jono

I'm glad Burn's has signed again :cool: He's easily suited to the Scoob - sometimes I think he comes across not as he intends - and apparently Petter and him are on equal footing which I think was a good move, Subaru need to carry on showing their faith in Petter :D A future champion if ever I've seen one :cool::)

Personally glad Colin's not come back to Subaru, although it would have been great to see him back in the car I don't think he's the kinda driver the team needs right now.

heh, one of my first posts on here was regarding Mcrae's driving style when he needs to make up time. You have to admit there is a lot of truth in what I said back then which was:
"He seems to plant the pedal and hope for the best"
I was watching the in car footage and he was just going too fast. Did you see the way he went over that massive jump? He got at least a foot higher and 10 feet further than any other driver.
Dont get me wrong he is a good driver, one of my favourites infact. it just seems to me that he removes his brain when he needs to make up time and hope he does okay.
usually he stacks it though.
astraboy.

From the footage I saw of McCrae in Finland, it appeared to me that he set out to teach Ringer a lesson for making the error: give him a scare, & so what if he crashed?

Perhaps also why Ringer didn't get in the helicopter with McCrae afterwards as he probably thought he would crash that too.

What happened there then? I haven't seen the footage yet :(

I think my comment at the time was: "If I was Ringer I would *seriously* think about not getting back in that car!" :eek:

ringer checked in early at time control and earned McCrash a minute penalty. http://www.click-smilies.de/sammlung...smiley-016.gif

so McCrash spat his dummy out and went flat out through the forest lost it on a left hand bend and rolled into the trees. - quite a bad accident actually lucky to not hurt his little finger again ! http://www.click-smilies.de/sammlung...smiley-016.gif

Glad he aint comming back to subaru. i just dont think he is the same as he was back in the old days. I think he is a very frustrated driver these days, needs a win to bring it all back into touch then he will string off a hat trick or so of wins until he makes a mistake/reliability lets him down. then the frustration sets in.

it's getting on 10 years since he won the championship and he has been so close so many times. - a very frustrated man.

Still dont understand why he is paid so much....http://www.click-smilies.de/sammlung...smiley-002.gif

I echo that comment.

just would have thought tommi would be the highest paid as he has been the most succesful

http://www.click-smilies.de/sammlung...smiley-001.gif

www.wrc.com/en_GB/News/2003/011/2003_R_FIN_JEANJOSEPHTOCITROEN.htm


citroen just signed up there 3rd driver for 04!