Atkinson satisfied with his pace in Jordan

Chris Atkinson of the Subaru World Rally Team says he’s satisfied to end the first day of the Jordan rally in fifth place.

The Australian started the rally unhappy with the handling of his car on the first few stages, but his pace increased as the day went on and he set top-five times on all of the stages in the afternoon.

“Fifth overall is good from today - it’s in line with our target for this event, and I think we have set a realistic pace this weekend” said Atkinson. “We’ve not been taking any risks as the grip today has just been so tricky it would have been easy to make a mistake and throw it off. We had a couple of moments; a spin and we slid off the road, but fortunately there was no major damage. We have made some changes to the car today which made steps in the right direction, but there is still more to come for tomorrow. The heat was really ok today for us, no problems, but it’s taking a while to get used to the surface which is so different to anything else.”

Atkinson is enjoying his most successful start to a WRC season to date and clinched his third podium from four rallies on the last round in Argentina.