Former Subaru boss issues warning to Toyota before Rally Finland 2016

The man who helped mastermind Subaru’s domination of the World Rally Championship reckons it could take Toyota five years before they are good enough to win the world title.

“There is a massive amount of work still to do,” said David Lapworth, the team principal whose Subarus took Colin McRae and Richard Burns to the world title.

The Japanese join the WRC in 2017 with a car built and prepared by former World Champion, Tommi Makinen, who drove for Subaru at the end of his illustrious career.

“Tommi’s team have done better than I expected getting their rally car ready for testing. But I would rather be Sam Allardyce than Tommi at the moment,” Lapworth continues.

“Allardyce has a better chance of England winning the next Euros than Tommi has of winning in Monte Carlo.”I can imagine how difficult it is for Tommi starting a team from scratch. It’s unbelievably complicated. Building a fast car is the easy bit. But it’s base camp,” says Lapworth. “From here in it’s like climbing Everest, there are trucks to co-ordinate, spare parts to consider, lifting systems, quality control.”

Subaru’s entry began as a private team with its first designs in 1989. Its first entry came in 1990.

It had to wait until 1993 for its debut WRC win, McRae’s triumph in New Zealand. He won the World Championship two years later.

“It was a gradual thing then,” says Lapworth. “We scaled up the size of the team as we went. No one really expected much.

“It wish Tommi luck. I can’t give him any advice, except that you can’t do it like they used to in the 1990s,” he says.