Atkinson celebrates 'awesome' result

The second place Chris Atkinson scored on Rally Mexico was the best result of his WRC career to date.

The 28-year-old Australian joined the Subaru World Rally Team in 2005 and up to now his best results have been the third places he recorded on Rally Japan in 2005 and this year’s Rallye Monte Carlo.

Atkinson’s second podium this season moves him up to fourth in the drivers’ championship, six points behind the leader Mikko Hirvonen and five ahead of his Subaru team-mate Petter Solberg.

Atkinson started the final day of Rally Mexico in second position with a comfortable buffer of over one minute behind him to third. With nothing to gain by going flat out, he drove carefully through the last three stages to bring his car back to Leon without a hitch.

“It’s an awesome result!” said Atkinson. “I want to say a bit thank you to everybody in the team and at Subaru - and especially the guys who prepared my car - they all did a top job. It’s a great start to the year for me and also for the team, and I hope we can keep building on this. We’re taking good steps forward and the car felt really good this weekend. We did some work on the dampers after Sweden and that was a big help - they were good here in the heat which is always a tough test. Now we look forward to Argentina and to keep this performance going. The sooner I can win a rally the better.”