[Nick Koan]

Not quite, but its much better than the last few years.

In Mexico, the new car debuted and Solberg lead from SS1. Up until about SS6 when something broke and he was forced to retire.

Now, in Portugal, Petter always seemed competitive, but just slightly off pace. Consistently losing a couple of seconds each stage. He ended up in 4th, 3 minutes down from Loeb, Gronholm and Hirvonen. In post-event scrutineering, it was found that all the Fords had rear window glass that was 5mm too thin. And even though it was admitted by the stewards that it wouldn't have made much difference, they still gave every Ford driver a 5 minute penalty, promoting Solberg to 2nd.

So, 2nd place, but 3 minutes down and he could barely keep up with Hirvonen in the actual race (he was within a ~10 seconds most of the event, but ended up nearly a minute down from Hirvonen). Its looking much better than last year, but SWRT still has a lot more work to do.