Ostberg stakes claim to MINI adventure

17th February 2010

By Richard Rodgers

Norwegian driver Mads Ostberg has staked his claim to a drive in MINI’s new World Rally Car, which is due to be run by British firm Prodrive next year.

Ostberg has been a loyal customer of Prodrive for a number of years, with his Adapta World Rally Team running ex-works S14 Imprezas last year. On this year’s Rally Sweden, he went back to the older S12B Impreza, but the young Norwegian hopes to swap his ageing cars for a MINI Crossover WRC next year.

“I’m talking to Prodrive and both of us are interested in continuing working together,” said the 22-year-old, a protégé of the 2003 world champion Petter Solberg. “I definitely think that I am worthy of a drive with them. But it’s difficult to say exactly what we can do with them because we have been struggling quite a lot with cars and confidence. I think with a good team and some testing it’s possible to fight for good positions, definitely.”

Ostberg nonetheless admitted that he was looking at other options as well, in order to secure a programme for the rest of this year. He expects to drive on some selected European events this season, such as Finland and Great Britain, but has no other long-term programme in place.

Representatives of MINI visited the Rally Sweden last week on a fact-finding mission together with key Prodrive personnel, including chairman David Richards and technical director David Lapworth.