From Ron Salter [ 17/03/2005 ].
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Skoda News.
Skoda boss Martin Muehlmeier branded the Czech teams Rally Mexico "a disaster" after the team came away with just one point from Armin Schwarz's 9th place finish on the debut of the new Fabia WRC05.
Finnish team-mate Jani Paasonen crashed out of the event and that has cost him a planned start in New Zealand where he will be replaced by Janne Tuohino, the team has now confirmed with the FIA.
"We need points badly," Muehlmeier told Autosport magazine. "When you are in this position you cannot retire on the second stage. You can understand when this happens to other drivers, drivers who are fighting for tenths of a second at the front of the field, but there was no pressure on Jani. We needed the finish."
The ex-Audi Le Mans head of testing and development, continued his outburst, also criticising lead driver Armin Schwarz; "Armin was too conservative, I am happy with the car's performance, as you can see in some of the stages or parts of the stages, but we needed some speed as well."
Muehlmeier's emotions appear to have bubbled over after a difficult start to the year for the Fabia squad, enduring niggling reliability problems as well as driver errors in Monte Carlo and Sweden in addition to Mexico. On the first 2 events the car proved to have the pace for strong top 6 finishes but these results were not ultimately seen.
Schwarz admitted he was not on the pace in Mexico; "I am not really happy with my performance. I never really found my rhythm, speed and feeling for the car which would have put me in a position to go for a result say in the top five."
The German was however pleased with his new car. "The new Fabia WRC performed good. The new aero kit and the drive-by-wire system which opens much better possibilities of engine mapping as well as a clearly better throttle response mark a big progress. Moreover there are many detail improvements which we are still learning to exploit to our maximum advantage."
Schwarz and Tuohino will take the startline of Rally New Zealand which begins in a little over 3 weeks time on April 8th.
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