Well the new car was finished (mostly) last week and this weekend Jamie Hickman and I tested it in Wales.
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We hired a small area of forest near Lampter in mid Wales for the day and had our very own rally stage about 1.5 miles in length. At each end was enough room to pull the handbrake and go back the other way. Our 'stage' had a hairpin and a square corner as well as some high speed bends and a varying surface with some rough and smooth bits. The venue was exactly what we needed to shake down the car.

We started in the morning just getting used to the car. With it's 185bhp and sequential box it is definitely a far more advanced car than the 206 Jamie and I used last season.

The car is really very good, over the rough sections of stage it is far more stable than the 206 and it puts an enormous amount of power onto the road. Nearly all of the power appears to be above 4500 rpm which took a bit of getting used to as did the sequential gearbox with it's flat shift. The car is much faster than any front wheel drive rally car I've ever sat in.
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After a quick lunch break we did a long run to see if anything fell off and what happened once it was up to a proper temperature. After six lengths of the course we were satisfied and started playing with the suspension settings.

This took up the rest of the afternoon but by the end we felt we had the car exactly how we wanted it and are now ready to tackle the C2R2 cup in the British rally championship starting with the Pirelli on the 21st April.