Fans of the world’s fastest Ferrari-engined Subaru rally car will be excited to hear it’s going to get even quicker – starting with this week’s Olympus Rally presented by DirtFish.
American driver Sam Albert, the genius who decided a V8 Ferrari engine was the only thing needed under the hood of his Impreza WRX, has outlined changes coming to the car as the 2024 season rolls out.
“We’ve worked on the car quite a lot already and there’s more coming,” said Albert, who arrives at Olympus on the back of wins in National Big White Winter and the Wild West Rallies. “We’ve done some work on the brakes and the geometry. We’re also looking at a composite hood to lighten the car a little bit. It’s lots of small changes which are focused more on the reliability – I’m pretty happy with the performance we’ve got from the car.
“If I’m honest, there’s more to come from me than the car. I need to utilize the performance we’ve got and to carry more speed through the corners. We’re working on the mechanical grip in the car to help in that direction. But really, I’d say there’s more speed from me learning how to really push this car.”
Albert’s plans for this season are focused on the American-Canadian North America Rally Cup, a title he last took in 2018. After the Olympus, he and co-driver Krista Skucas will tackle Oregon Trail before heading into Canada for Rocky Mountain and Pacific Forest Rally.
Talking about his chances of upsetting Brandon Semenuk’s domination of ARA in the Pacifc Northwest this week, Albert added: “It’s very difficult to get close to Brandon. We had a couple of the shorter stages in OTR last year when we were seven seconds or so off of him – I think there’s potential for us to get quicker if we can get everything aligned, but I just don’t think it’s realistic for us to think we can compete with him. We’re [a] pretty small [team] and there’s too much potential for things to go wrong.
“I would love to think we could maybe take a stage win at some point – maybe that’s something for next year when we’ve got everything completely dialed. That would be the real validation to win a stage against those guys without them making a mistake.”
The performance side of what Albert and the Subaru-Ferrari do is a key driver in the program, but he’s quick to admit the appreciation of the car still makes him smile.
“The interest in the car is still huge and I’m loving driving it,” he said. “It’s great to see the appreciation everybody has for the car and there’s no doubt I’m putting on a little extra show for the guys when I can see the phones coming out to make the video in a corner. Where we are now, we can lose a second or two to make some extra media – and coming through corners more sideways with all the noise, that’s a lot of fun.”
If you’re in the PNW this weekend, come and feel that noise for yourself on the Olympus Rally. Then event starts out of Shelton on Saturday morning with service at Sanderson Airfield. The full details of the event are available here.
