Scotty Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 Fuji Heavy Industries project group manager Shigeo Sugaya was confirmed as Manufacturer Principal, Engineering of the Subaru World Rally Team at a press conference in Tokyo on Monday. He takes over responsibility for the World Rally Championship team operation from Toshi Azuma, who has been given the new responsibility of team Manufacturer Marketing Principal. The appointment is effective immediately and Sugaya was already present at Obihiro in time for the start of Rally Japan. Masaru Katsurada remains the President of STi. Another appointment is the position of Chief Designer for the team: Frenchman Christophe Chapelin returns to Prodrive after recent work at the Nissan cross country team, replacing Ed Wood who moved onto Formula One work earlier this year. Chapelin will work under SWRT Director of Engineering Steve Farrell. In another change, Hiroshi Mori has been given responsibility in addition to his current work as Chief Engineer for Impreza road car development. Mori, who last year had some input into the Impreza WRC development work, now becomes responsible for World Rally Car design work in Japan and will work alongside Sugaya. This latest round of changes will bring a more engineering-bias to the team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SW7RT Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 Interesting, hopefully this will make the difference next year, I hate to see Subaru 3rd in manufacturer standing and Ford is 42 points ahead of them with six events left . Looks like Gronholm is doing great since his move to Ford.The only way Subaru would get close to Citroen is if Loeb took a sudden vacation for the rest of the rally season. I hope Solberg will finish in the top three this weekend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShockerGT Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 Interesting, hopefully this will make the difference next year, I hate to see Subaru 3rd in manufacturer standing and Ford is 42 points ahead of them with six events left . Looks like Gronholm is doing great since his move to Ford.The only way Subaru would get close to Citroen is if Loeb took a sudden vacation for the rest of the rally season. I hope Solberg will finish in the top three this weekend. I dont see Subaru catching Ford. Nothing seems to be going right for SWRT this year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest *Jedimaster* Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 Rally, the NASCAR of Europe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SW7RT Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 Rally, the NASCAR of Europe True that, but with more class. NASCAR= Kings of the merry-go-round. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zsbaug24 Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 Subaru has done well in Japan so I would hope this is an event they can win. Unfortunately, they have had a lot of issues and driver error that has been a staple of this season so I won't get my hopes up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psucaptainkickass Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 Yeah like broken driveshafts...blown engines to name a few. Really disappointed in Subie this season. But, when it works, I love watching that Impreza WRC car on the course. So different looking than everything else. Is there really a difference between the Peugot 206 and Citroen Xsara? Haha. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scotty Posted August 30, 2006 Author Share Posted August 30, 2006 206 vs. Xsara = huge difference 307 vs. Xsara = huge difference Peugeot engine vs. Citroen engine = big difference. While owned by the same group, and they use similiar parts, the cars are completely different. Peugeot engine has always put out more torque than the Citroen even though it is based on the same engine. That's still the reason why Peugeot still uses a 5 spd gearbox instead of 6. Peugeot team doesn't share information with Citroen team and vice versa. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psucaptainkickass Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 Whoa. I was refering to looks...I know they are different cars underneath. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scotty Posted August 31, 2006 Author Share Posted August 31, 2006 The 206 and the Xsara aren't even that similar in looks. The 206 was a tiny car. In fact it was the smallest car anyone has ran since the Mini. The Peugeot engineers had a really difficult time try to package everything in there. By comparison, the 307 was a huge car compared to the 206. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATB Posted September 1, 2006 Share Posted September 1, 2006 There is still a WRC? I haven't seen a single rally since bone headed NASCAR TV dropped it after last season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scotty Posted September 1, 2006 Author Share Posted September 1, 2006 There are other ways to watch the WRC since there are people gracious enough to post the Eurosport coverage. Same with Top Gear and Fifth Gear shows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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