Post Rally Finland Q&A - Olivier Quesnel

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Looking only at the performance of your own team and drivers, what has been your highlight of this season so far - and why?
The highlight so far has been the win in Finland. The reason? Because it was in Finland! Sebastien already had 41 victories and this year was his seventh time to start the rally and this was the year he succeeded. It's the rally all the non Scandinavians would like to get but before the event I didn't think it could happen. I knew Seb wanted it, but he knew better than me that we scored nothing on two rallies in Sweden and Jordan and needed to get points. So he said he'd try for the first stage and see how he got on. And he just carried on from there. As far as I'm concerned, winning Finland was more important than winning Monte Carlo.

What has been the most valuable lesson your team has learned so far this year?
In Turkey I learned that rallying is sometimes not enough to win. You have to take care of political things too. For me strategy or tactics in rally is awful. This sport should be all down to the speed of the driver. There were no tactics in Finland and everybody was happy to see the show. Of course we considered the possibility of tactics on Friday, because Saturday was such a large percentage of the rally, but we chose not to. I wouldn't like to have taken victory like that. In the end I think the straight fight in Finland was good for the sport.

Which driver from any team (including your own) has impressed you most this year? Why?
Seb. He's a genius.

In your testing before Finland which technical aspects of the car did you concentrate on?
The engine is okay; all the cars are about the same there. In rallying the most import part is the suspension, so we concentrated on this. I'm not telling you what exactly, though.

Do you have any significant developments planned for your car between now and the end of the year?
No new car as such, but some improvements and evolutions here and there. The fact is we have at least 100 engineers working on improving different pieces of the car. These people are working at least eight hours every day, so the car is always getting better. It just happens. Sebastien said to me don't touch the car - but we want to work. We are going to make it better.

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