Mitsubishi all out

They withdrew their works team from the British Rally Championship recently too.
 
Wow, out of all the things. I would have never have guessed them to drop out of Dakar!
 
You see, this is surprising, as Mitsubishi has been successful in Dakar recently. With Subaru, the writing had been on the wall for a while before it happened.
 
The current Subaru was developed with Petter Solberg's imput, so the Subaru would be more competetive. I don't think that they were considering quitting, until the economic downturn had got the car industry by the throat.
 
Mitsubishi has made their mark in rally racing for about as long as the company has been in existance. That's HUGE news. What do you normally think of when you think of Mitsubishi? Usually rally racing. Huge loss in this economic climate.
 
To me it seems international rallying is dying! :( It's just not cost effective now and so no one can see the advantage of competing in the sport!
 
Last edited:
zed300
The current Subaru was developed with Petter Solberg's imput, so the Subaru would be more competetive. I don't think that they were considering quitting, until the economic downturn had got the car industry by the throat.
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If you mean the 2008 car, it doesn't seem to have made any difference.
I'm not saying that the economic troubles didn't have something to do with it. However, it should have seemed pretty obvious that Subaru was going to hang it up sooner rather than later if their luck didn't turn around; and it shouldn't have been too surprising when they actually did announce it. They have been dumping money into a sport that they haven't been particularly competitive in for 5 years, a sport seen by some as being in a decline, a sport that doesn't seem to have much of a tangible effect on how many cars are actually sold, and a sport that the company's largest market doesn't even see. Mitsubishi dropped out of WRC in, what, 2005? Mitsubishi car sales don't seem to have been hammered that badly. All the economic crunch did was accelerate their decision, more likely.

Mitsubishi, in the meantime, has never in recent memory not been competitive in Dakar. Nearly half of the wins list is owned by them, and they won the event as recently as 2007 (which essentially means they won last year).
Subaru pulling out of WRC was something that probably was going to happen anyways with the way things were going. Mitsubishi pulling out of Dakar is totally out of left field, more akin to when Toyota and Lancia pulled out of WRC.
 

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