Subaru's Chris Atkinson has retired from the Rallye Deutschland, the tenth round in the 2007 FIA World Rally Championship, after a mistake in the 18.08 kilometre Moselwein 1 test.
The Aussie who had been running ninth overall, after having lost around 8 minutes on day 1 in SS2, when he beached his Impreza, hit a wall 1.5 kilometres from the finish of SS16, when he made an error under braking. The impact damaged the front-right corner of his car and he was forced to stop.
His exit follows that of his team-mate, Xavier Pons, who went out in the stage before with engine problems. As such Petter Solberg is now the sole runner left for the Banbury-based outfit.
Atkinson though may still be classified under the SupeRally format, as the team will pick up the final manufacturers' point if their #2 car makes it to 'the finish'. Currently only seven drivers' nominated to score team points are running, following the retirements of Manfred Stohl and Dani Sordo earlier in the event.
Chris' exit is a real shame because despite his costly error on the second stage on Friday, he has managed to set some excellent times, including winning three stages - something that hadn't gone unnoticed by Subaru team boss, Richard Taylor.
"Chris has had a really excellent day," said Taylor at the end of day 2. "He's broken back into the top ten at the finish, but really his pace over the whole rally, with the exception of one stage, has been podium-pace without a doubt. We're very pleased with him and he's done a great job."
Atkinson had also been very encouraged by his stage times, especially as asphalt isn't his preferred surface and he is still relatively new to it.
Speaking on Saturday night he added: "We've been fine-tuning the set-up on the car today [Saturday] and concentrating on learning - after losing time Friday that's all I can do. I keep making improvements to my driving, I'm still making mistakes here and there, but there's a lot to learn - this is only our second asphalt rally on BFGoodrich tyres - but obviously we're not learning too slowly.
"I'm very pleased with the speed. We were consistently fast, which is pretty cool. Two years ago I did my first asphalt rally, and it was never going to happen straight away, but it's pretty good to be doing these sort of times now," he summed-up.
For the record, Atkinson set 13 top ten times from a possible 15 during this event - and in addition to his three wins, he also posted two second best times and two third best efforts.
