Driving Sports

It is now confirmed that Subaru will pull out of the World Rally Championship for the 2009 season. This follows the official news that Suzuki has also left the WRC. This would mean that for the first time in over twenty years, that a Japanese manufacturer will not contest the WRC.

Subaru has struggled in the past few years to find the bottom rung of the podium. 2009 is the final year of Peter Solberg’s contract and so far, the younger Chris Atkinson has failed to find the pace to stay in the top 5. At this season’s end, Solberg and Atkinson trailed Sebastien Loeb’s 122 points, with 50 and 46, respectively, with the two Subaru drivers firmly arrears of both the Citroen and Ford teams. This has been the status quo for the last few seasons.

If anything, this may be a restructuring of the team with time to develop the new car and new talent.  However, Subaru has staked their claim to being the world’s leader in AWD technology and rally is a big part of that. With a new STI now on the market, it is up to SWRT to win on Sunday to bring sales around on Monday.

Stay tuned, we'll post the latest when we know more.