Present:
Toshiya Azuma (Subaru)
Isao Torii (Mitsubishi)
Jean-Pierre Nicolas (Peugeot)

Q: Torii-san thank you for the welcome to Japan, how clever of you to organise such great weather. What does it mean for your team to have WRC come to Japan?
IT: As you may know, last year for the first WRC in Japan, Mitsubishi had several reasons they could not come and lots of Mitsubishi fans were so sad. We were sad also. This time we made it and this time we can come here and at last compete in Japan. This is our home land in Japan and we would like to show good performance to our Mitsubishi fans.  We set up this event as the most important event in the year for our team and we have been preparing for this event so it’s very exciting and also Mitsubishi are very excited and we have a chance to show our performance in our homeland Japan

Q: You have entered a three car team, what do you expect from each of your drivers?
IT: Of course our target is to get on the podium. Our car is getting more reliable, faster and improved and each driver is getting stable and confident in the car. Harri and Gilles and Gigi show their best performance and hopefully Sunday evening we will be smiling.

Q: How much interest at Mitsubishi the company is there in the team?
IT: In the case of Japan and Mitsubishi given that Mitsubishi are now facing difficult times, because of the problems last year and past, such as Ricoh and so on, so Mitsubishi are facing financial problems as well. We have to revitalise ourselves and also catch up to our good way. This is very important to us to show our appeal to the customers and ask Mitsubishi customers and fans to come back to our dealership so they  realise Mitsubishi are still vital and we have to revitalise Mitsubishi

Q: Toshi you treated Subaru and STI to a very successful first rally in Japan. Can you repeat it?
TA: Yes. We are not satisfied with the results after New Zealand and I believe this is our turn.  The preparation is perfect so we don’t need second or third.

Q: Toshi, how popular is WRC in Japan?
TA:Last year even I was surprised that so many people came to Hokkaido! I think that a lot of people support WRC but it’s still not enough. I think that it is difficult to understand. I think that the ones that do understand WRC are much deeper fans than circuit racing. So I would like to know how to improve the value of WRC. There is a lot to do still.

Q: At Shakedown, I found people still talking about Sunday in Wales, a tragic end to the weekend. Has it caused you to make a greater effort to make sure your driver and co-driver are safe when they compete?
TA: Of course.  First of all I am very sad of the accident because ‘Beef’ used to be a team member. We should not repeat this. The most important aim is not just performance, safety is the most important thing to demonstrate. We should try to work very hard to improve the safety as much as we can. Of course we work hard with FIA to improve the safety features. Not only this, but we are willing to support everybody, work with the organisers - everything to improve safety, we support.

Q: Torii-san, may be we take safety for granted, we like the glamour, the show. Do you think safety has drifted away from the agenda?
IT: As a manufacturer, we have to concentrate on safety issues as well. We can’t forget this issue. We will accelerate to improve safety issues working together with FIA and other manufacturer’s and study how we can improve furthermore. We cannot stop and go behind. We will always go forward.

Q: Jean-Pierre Nicolas, it’s been a difficult two weeks. How is the team, what’s in their minds and what are they thinking?
JPN: As you may understand it’s difficult to take the decision to come to Japan. Not for Japan because it’s fantastic; it’s a fantastic idea to have a world rally championship in Japan.  But after the tragic accident everyone in Peugeot and everyone in the world rally business is very sad and very shocked and until I have seen the widow of Michael, I was very uncertain of coming. And when I spoke to Marie and when I have seen her I have seen a very strong woman, who had already decided that most important was Michael’s memory and for that we must do Japan. If you had asked me last Sunday the same question, I would have told you we will not go, but after today we have recovered a little bit and each day more and more and now we are sure we had to come. We have to be sure that Marcus was ready because all the team was very shocked and that Timo was ready to come. They said they were (ready) on Tuesday evening and then Markko after speaking with him was not able to come mentally and physicality and we decided at the time to call Daniel Carlsson to ask him to come. I want to take the opportunity  because most of the world rally journalists are present here, to thank everybody all over the world because we have received a lot of messages for Michael, for Peugeot, for Michael’s  family to see how much he has been appreciated all over the world. Thank you everybody, especially the messages coming from very far.

Q: Did you had considered pulling out?
JPN: Now we have decided to continue okay. The decision of the marshall in GB was a bit difficult to understand. Okay it was their decision. There was a proposal from the manufacturer’s to stop the rally after the stage 15, after the accident. This could have permitted to have Marcus in the points because everybody can understand it was impossible to continue the rally in these conditions. The right decision would have been to finish the rally after stage 15. It has not been taken and now we are 20 points behind Citroen and only four rallies, with 2 asphalt rallies. I think it will be unbelievable to beat them. We will do our best on each rally. We cannot ask Daniel who has done only one rally for us this season, which was Sweden and after that he has not driven a Peugeot , he has done 4-5 events with a Subaru. We can’t ask him to go as fast as Markko is going, but I am still sure he will do his best in this situation and Marcus will do his best in this situation. Marcus is still in shock and I know he will do his best and is getting better. He will do his best in Michael’s memory.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR:

(Japanese journalist)
Q: Torii-san,Last year you did not participate in this rally. What would be the negative impact of that on this rally?
IT: Our first nominated driver Harri Rovanpera has experience with the Peugeot team last year so I don’t think it’s a negative. I think it’s positive. I think he is in the same position as other competitors.  However Gilles and Gigi have no experience in this rally but it’s the same as Ford and other teams. I don’t think it’s a big disadvantage. The most important things is that this is our home land and there are lots of Mitsubishi red fans. That gives a lot of power for the drivers and then I think the drivers do a good job.

JPN added:
JPN: I am sure that Jacques Berger from FIA with all the safety commission they will improve the safety, however our chief engineer is in this commission and already before this rally they were working very hard to improve the safety of the car and I am sure this terrible accident will help all the teams to find better solutions on side shocks which is the most terrible today in rallies. 

Q: Nicky Grist said that you would have to build a rally car like a tank to protect the car in that sort of situation. Do you believe that?
JPN: Since many years we have had a lot of accidents, very hard crashes and we have all seen the cars were very strong but only is very difficult when you have a side shock. Okay we will improve but not at any speed. There will always be a limit of the speed when you have a lateral shock. You cannot make a tank. This is impossible. You can have space in between driver and the side of car like F1. You can have the driver in the front and the co driver in the back but this is impossible. We have to drive with normal cars and try one more time to try and improve a little bit more the safety on the side of the car.

Present:
Gigi Galli (Mitsubishi)
Mikko Hirvonen (Skoda)

(Galli arrives showing the word GIGI emblazoned on the seat of his driving overalls
Q: Why do you have your name behind you?
GG: You know Italians! It’s some Italian fashion.

Q: Gigi, you have a big following here in Japan. You’ve met some of your fans - tell me about them.
GG: Three weeks ago we came to Yokohama and we did one rally meeting and it was a lot of fun with Mitsubishi for the rally. There were 3000 people more or less and it was one very exciting meeting because for one of the first times I feel a lot of support from the people. I never felt something like that.

Q: Were you surprised for the level of enthusiasm for the sport and the brand?
GG: Not surprised. I can say happy. I think it’s something that we need. For me it’s like some fuel.

Q: You are not nominated for points does that disappoint you?
GG: No, the reason for that is that Mitsubishi decided to show all three drivers for this event. I asked them to give me the chance to have number 25 because it’s my favourite number, like in a race, my team asked and they kindly gave us the chance to have this number.

Q: Why this number?
GG: It’s a number that I used in my first world rally event I did in Monte Carlo in 2000 and I have a good memory for that. It was a good performance and after that I did a lot of promotions for my fans and I used it for many things. That is the first time I had the chance to use it in WRC.

Q: Mikko, this is a terrific opportunity, back in a works team…
MH: Yeah, again I’m back in a new team and like always it’s really nice to be behind the wheel again and back in a works car and one chance for me again to show what I can do.

Q: How did the opportunity come around?
MH:I knew Skoda wanted a driver in Japan who had been here before. I had the chance to drive this rally last year and got some experience. I am lucky they contacted me and here I am.

Q: You are the most experienced guy in the team as far as Japan is concerned.
MH: I agree. I don’t know if it’s good or bad.

Q: What did you tell them?
MH: I said enjoy your time. I really like the country and the food here; there is nothing to be scared of. Just enjoy the time and we will have a good weekend.

Q: What did you tell them about the stages and how to be successful?
MH: That’s one thing we should ask Petter. He was quite successful last year, I am sure he knows the trick. One thing is that they are really fast and tricky. You have to be careful with your pacenotes. You have to be careful. There is no room for any mistakes like any rally but the roads here are so narrow.

Q: Your aim is obviously another full time drive. Have you talked this through with Skoda?
MH: We will see. It’s still too early for that. Definitely, okay I am in a team now and behind a world rally car again now.

Q: You must have thought that if you do well it will help?
MH: Sure it will if it goes like that.

Q: Is that the aim? You are in the shop window again. Is the aim to produce a good result to try and get a drive.
MH: For me it’s always been like that this year. Every rally I try to go as fast as I can and try to do a good result. I go one rally at a time. We will see what the future holds.

Q: Are you into Italian fashion like Gigi?
MH: Not yet, but it looked quite good. I have to think about it!

Present:
Sebastien Loeb (Citroen)
Peter Solberg (Subaru)

Q: Petter, you won here last year. What does it take to win in Japan?
PS: Obviously we have some new things for the car, for the rally. I am much more confident now than I have been the whole year so hopefully everything will work out perfectly and we can do a little bit better than we did on shakedown today. I think we have a chance to do it hopefully.

Q: What are your memories from last year?
PS: My memories for last year are incredible. It was the best memory from the whole year. The atmosphere, the show, the stages, it was really good fun to do and to get that feeling again. It was a long time ago. Hopefully we can give Sebastien a fight for this rally because obviously he needs it.

Q: Seb, he wants to give you a fight, no doubt you are ready for it?
SL: Yes I am ready. For the moment everything is going well. Everything with the car is good. I remember last year it was a fight with Petter and he was a bit faster, so I think we have improved this year with the car and the tyres. I am sure we can fight with him. For me it’s another challenge here because if I finish third I will be the champion and that’s important.

PS: Have you decided which rally you want to win the championship? Will you wait till Corsica?!
SL: I prefer to win the championship here than the rally. It’s difficult to think like this. And to decide I will not take too much risk to fight for the victory. We will see tomorrow and if I can fight for victory and I will do it.

Q: What would it mean to you and Citroen to win here where Mitsubishi and Subaru are so big?
SL: For me to win here it’s not the most important thing. The most important is to be the champion and now we have four rallies to go and we are close to winning the title and it’s not over till the end so at the moment I think if I could be champion here I could very happy because it’s also a lot of pressure when you are close and you are not at the moment. I will do my best. If I can fight for the victory I will try and fight.

Q: You could have won in Britain but it wasn’t to be because of the decision…
PS interjected:
That decision was wrong in England. They should have cancelled the rally after the stage when everybody came back to service, then Marcus would have got his points. There would not have been anything at all. It would have been the most fair thing because of Marcus and the Peugeot team. All the teams and drivers would agree that we should have left it as it was.
SL: The best way to make it simple and fair and logic for me was that the rally should have been stopped at the last stage that every driver has drove through. Marcus was third, I completely understand his decision to retire and not to go to check in at service. What does it change in a situation like this. We didn’t do anymore stages so why not stop the rally on the last stage.

Q: It could have been argued this was unprecedented; we were in a place we had not been in before or for a long time so clear decisions were difficult to come by.
PS: No not really; we should think of what happened and forget everything else and think logic about it and just leave it, calm down and finish. Instead of doing everything else we did. If not, if we pulled out all the driver, if we pulled out of the whole rally we would have pulled out.

Q: Have we learned anything for the future if anything was to happen again?
PS: We won’t think about it happening again
SL: No for sure. In the rally we were not happy with the decision but it’s like this, you take your own decision after that. I didn’t want to win the championship in these conditions. It’s not fair. Marcus decided not to check in at the service for that we checked in a bit earlier. But we don’t want to speak anymore about this… I hope it never happens again such an accident.

Q: A lot of Japanese fans are looking forward to you two fighting to the win. I wonder how that will be affected by the longest stage for the rally - an enormous stage for 50 kms and a rally with 26 stages. How is the rhythm for a stage like that?
PS: The stages last year were much better. The stages this year are too fast compared to last year. The long stage that is going to be crucial for us, because it’s very hard base and it’ will be tricky for us. You need a lot of power you need to take the throttle down and take some risks, like a lot of other stages. We have talked about it also the rally is too fast.

SL: Sure it’s very fast and very narrow. Also it’s not an easy rally. For me the long stage will be very difficult with the tyre because now with the new regulations it’s very hard to choose the tyre one month before but this will be difficult for everybody. Some of the stages are not as nice as last year because they put a lot of gravel on the road. We have soft roads like this after the recce and it can be dangerous because you really have to stay in the lines. If you go off the line you can have trouble.

Q: Do you think you should have input into the stages you drive on or just accept what you get?
SL: It’s not easy because we are not allowed to see the stages before - that’s normal. We cannot say one driver can go and see the stages; it’s not fair, so it’s difficult. Perhaps the organisers here do not have a lot of experience here of World Championship rallies and probably good intention to put some fresh gravel on the stages and make it clean but with the car like we have some big ruts and after it’s not so nice. I think like Petter said the stages are very fast. it s not the only rally there is a lot like this especially with our car which as a lot of grip and the car is very easy to drive. If some stages could be more twisty it would be better for everyone.

Q: Petter what do you think?
PS: We can cope with everything, it’s no problem. But like it is now it’s so fast, you put it in sixth gear and have to just hold it. First of all we should go to pure logic again. When the guy who is in charge of stages and goes through them and decides which one we should use, they should drive through every single one and think things like “this is too fast, the whole stage has a big drop on the left hand side, maybe it’s a stupid idea”. We want more technical, more difficult stages, more driving so we can see more differences between the drivers. Because everyone can put in sixth gear and leave it there.  But for example when it’s very muddy and rainy and difficult, that’s where you see the driveability and the driver’s performance. That’s for safety and also for driving and performance.

FIA Production Cars  World Rally Championship
Pre-event Press Conference
29 September 2005

Present:
Toshi Arai, Subaru
Natalie Barratt, Mitsubishi
Marcos Ligato, Subaru
Fumio Nutahara, Mitsubishi

Welcome to the PWRC press conference. First of all a word of introduction about the PWRC. Essentially a championship for cars that look like world rally cars but in a lower state of tune so you could call it a division two championship. Here in Japan there has been a tremendous interest in the championship mostly because its two biggest Japanese manufacturers are most represented on it. A particularly close championship fight to this year. The top three drivers are covered by three points. Nasser Al-Attiyah currently leads the championship as the regulations mean you have to miss one rally so the championship will be  fought by Toshi Arai from Subaru and Marcos Ligato, another Subaru driver.

Q: Toshi, this is the first time the PWRC has come to Japan. How popular is it here?
TA: It’s now the second Rally Japan so everybody knows everything well so with the Production Car being just Subaru and Mitsubishi, they are quite famous in Japan.

Q: And is there a particular interest in the Production Cup category.
TA: Yes last year no one came in the Group N Championship and this year quite many Production Car people come here. And also Japanese competitors are very excited.

 Q: It’s very exciting for you because you can fight for the championship. With only two points in it how are you feeling?
TA: I am not too bad because we have Japan and Australia - so two rallies more so it’s not so bad for me. We try hard to win this rally.

Q: For the last two years you have been second in the Championship. Is this the one where it’s finally going to be your year?
TA: We have to win this rally and this year. STI said many times to me “you have to win”.

Q: Do you have a lot of support from the local fans?
TA: Yes quite many people come here and are excited.

Q: Fumio, you come from Hokkaido, do you feel you have a local advantage?
FN: Yes, I live in Sapporo and it’s only three hours from here.  I don’t really know the course too much but it’s on the same island so perhaps I do have a home advantage.

Q: You won the last round of the Japanese championship. It must give you a lot of confidence?
FN: In July there was Rally Hokkaido in the same area and unfortunately I could not win the Japanese Championship but I could get good expereince for this rally. I have prepared myself very well.

Q: What is the main difference between Subaru and Mitsubishi.
FN: You want me to explain the difference between Mitsubishi and Subaru! Well they are both 2 litre turbos! The biggest difference is the engine, the form, the Subaru has a horizontal opposing engine and that’s the biggest diference I guess. Both are very good cars, high performance.

Q: You are the only driver in the Championship using Yokohama tyres. Do you think they will be an advantage for you?
FN: Yes I do. I am the only one and I have been usng these tyres for two years and participating in the WRC in this form as a Japanese manufacturer is rare. In the past two years, Yokohama has collected a lot of data. We have been putting focus on this event. Obviously as a Japanese manufacturer they would like to have a win in a Japanese event. They have been very well prepared for this event.

Q: Natalie,this is your first time in Japan, what do you think of it?
NB: Japan is different to what I expected. The roads are narrow and fast with a lot of gravel. Some places remind me of how it is in England in Kielder and Scotland so it should be interesting.

Q: You are the only girl in the championship. How difficult does it make it for you?
NB: It doesn’t make it difficult. It makes it easier because sometimes you can get a helping hand. It’s fine, the guys are really nice, they are really good fun to work with. They are really nice people, it’s a nice championship to be with.

Q: You have Kaj Linstrom sitting with you on this and the last event. He is one of the most experienced co-drivers. How is he able to help you?  What input does he have?

NB: A lot of input. He has been a really big help. This morning when we did shakedown, we were back in a Mitsubishi and I had driven a Subaru for the last three rallies. It was a different driving style and he sat in the car this morning and he helped me set it up. That’s why we’re late, we did an extra two runs. We changed small things, my pace notes. Before we did Rally GB we changed my pace notes from descriptive to numbers. We are just perfecting those at the moment, it’s a big big help.

Q: What sort of objectives are realistic for this event, as it’s your first time here?
NB: I would like to get my times better than GB basically and at the end of the rally be closer to the guys at the front than I am at the moment. That’s the big objective.

Q: Toshi, what does it take to doing well in Rally Japan?
TA: I think it’s quite difficult because the road is quite difficult in parts so you must drive precise. There is a lot of grass and underneath there are big stones under the grass.

Q: What do you expect from the weather conditions?
TA: I think fine days but I want rain because after rain it’s quite difficult especially day three it’s quite difficult so after rain it’s much better for me.

Q: Natalie, you’ve driven both a Subaru and Mitusbishi. What are they key differences?
NB: I think in the Mitsubishi sometimes the engine is a little stronger and maybe more stable but for me the Subaru tends to be nimbler through the corners and drives a little differently. I find the difference quite reasonable.

Q: Marcos welcome. Fumio was saying he is local. You come from literally the other side of the world, Argentina.
ML: I was here three years ago and I remember Fumio was very fast here and I know Toshi was the same, they are from Japan. I think we will have a very good race with both local drivers.

Q: How difficult will it be for you to beart them on home territory?
ML: It will be very difficult. They know very well the roads. I have been here three years ago but it was a different race.There are too many new stages for me. I know about 20 per centre of the race and the rest is new to me. I have a very good feeling. We have a very good car. We are doing world championshop events and taking good points. On the fourth event we finished on the podium. I will try and do the same here.

Q: This event has mixed weather and loose gravel. Are they similar to Argentina?
ML: No. We made the last two stages recce yesterday and they were very difficult, very slippery and it was not raning but in the middle of trees. It was very difficult to see. With the sun you cannot see the corner. It’s very difficult. If you have good notes here you can be at good advantage.

Q: What is your strategy? This is a crucial event for you.
ML: It’s difficult to take a strategy here because we are in the same points. I think Toshi is very fast here but maybe we can finish close to him, more or less the same points, and we can go to the last event. You must not think of anything but the World Championship. In the last event you can go flat out but not here.