Araujo, who drives a Motorsport Italia run MINI John Cooper Works WRC, put the blame for his lack of pace on a lack of pre-event testing in the new car. The Portuguese driver is more used to the Super Production version, having débuted the car along side Daniel Olivera of the Brazil World Rally Team on last month's Rally de Portugal. His first run in the WRC-spec car was on the shakedown of last weekend's Rally d'Italia Sardegna.
During the rally, he copied the set-up of the Super Production car onto the WRC machine. With the WRC car's improved aero kit, this set-up proved ineffective, rendering the car hard to drive.
“We arrived in Sardinia without tests so with the new WRC [bolt-on body kit] the car was not working like I like and like the Super 2000 version I drove on Rally of Portugal. I didn’t find the confidence to push and I started losing a lot of time. Now we are preparing to do some tests to be faster and more confident for Greece.” said Araujo.
Despite problems with the car overheating and the set-up problems, which lead to the car becoming unbalanced and the steering not being precise, Araujo survived the three days of the rally to finish 12th overall.
However, he is hopeful of some testing mileage before his next outing in Greece in mid-June, which he expects to have sorted by the Greek event. He also commented on the aero difference in the Super Production and WRC cars, which he says completely changes the balance of the car.
“Comparing with the car from Portugal with the new aerodynamic, kit the balance of the car changed completely. Sometimes I don’t have the balance and sometimes [I was] without the good steering. As a result the times are not coming. But for sure we have the potential. We need to make more kilometres but it will be good in a few months.”
Araujo is to compete on the rest of the European-based events in this year's calender, with the view to competing on a full programme for next year.
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