RallySport Magazine September 2016

INTERVIEW: MADS OSTBERG
MADS OSTBERG
Story: MARTIN HOLMES
M-Sport’s 26-year old lead driver,
Mads Ostberg, is to start
his 100th world championship
rally in Corsica, the second youngest
driver and the third Norwegian to
reach this level of experience.
Mads embarked on his WRC rally
career at the Swedish Rally in 2006,
so this seemed a good opportunity to
find out from the inside how the world
championship has changed in the last
10 years. From the outside, the work
of the promoters, the way that drivers
and teams prepare for rallies, the
intensity for competition on events and
the personal way that the profession of
rally driving have changed, and the way
that rallies themselves are run?
Mads: By the time I came into WRC
various things like central servicing
were already well established. We had
just started with two passes on the
recce. It is surprising what changes
came as a result.
Recceing has really developed over
10 years. It made everyone look in
different areas to improve and use the
spare time between the rallies to get
more familiar with the roads. Everyone
started to video their recces.
Now we use WRC+ a lot. Everything
68 | RALLYSPORT MAGAZINE - SEPTEMBER 2016
is now getting more intense. The work
continues, not just in the actual hours
in which you are actually recceing the
stages. Previously, co-drivers always
used to spend their evenings cleaning
up the notes they had made, but now
everyone is watching the videos of the
stages.
Back in the start of my career when
Petter (Solberg) was still driving, we all
went out to have dinner in the evenings
with his brother Henning. I remember
Petter also liked to go to a cinema after
the recce. When he finished recce he
would go for a jog and then go and see
a movie!
Mind you, Henning still likes to go to
eat. He hasn’t changed, he has the old
fashioned way of doing things!
MH: Nowadays, the need for fitness is a big
change.
MO: Yes, and never as much as now.
I think everyone knows you actually
need to be a good athlete to be a good
rally driver. Now all the top drivers
spend a lot of time on physical training.
It wasn’t really that much when
I started. I think there was a new
generation starting quite at the same
time as I did (2006-2009), with Thierry
Neuville, Ott Tanak, Evgeniy Novikov,
Andreas Mikkelsen and myself. A lot
of new drivers brought these things
Mads Ostberg driving
for Subaru on the 2006
Wales Rally GB.
Mads Ostberg in 2011.
on to another level. This was a new
generation of drivers coming in with
different backgrounds.
Sebastien Loeb started himself by
being an athlete before he came into
rallying.
MH: The next factor is everything to do
with social media. Has it taken all of us
over?
MO: When I started rallying there
was no such thing. Everyone had
a website and things were working
differently.
I think social media is really
important. Together with the television,
it is now one of the biggest things we
have to promote our sport. I think all
the drivers on the top level are using a
lot of energy on social media and that’s
the same for me as well.
I think every driver has other people
to do this work for them. You can’t do
that while you’re driving! Obviously we
can take pictures, which we do, we give
comments to our media people, but
they are the people taking care of this.
MH: Then there have been advances in the
safety work.
MO: When I came into rallying special
clothing was already a big part of the
rally teams and also for us. For sure,
especially with the HANS (Head and
Neck Safety) device, and now I’m using