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Interview: Dominique Serieys, team director MMSP
Interview: David Serieys, MMSP's logistics manager
Interview: Thierry Viardot, MMSP's technical director

INTERVIEW: THIERRY VIARDOT, MMSP'S TECHNICAL DIRECTOR

MMSP'S Technical Director is Thierry Viardot (France) and he is based at the MMSP SAS headquarters at Pont-de-Vaux in France and has worked in close liaison with Japanese engineers at MMC’s Okazaki R&D Center in Japan on all the most recent versions of the Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero Evolution. Viardot and his team have made several improvements to the MPR13 which made its debut on the 2007 Dakar and hope that its competitiveness and pedigree will help steer Repsol Mitsubishi Ralliart to an eighth successive Dakar win in January.

The Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero Evolution MPR13 is about to contest the Dakar for the second year running. What are the strengths that helped it to win this event in 2007 and how has it been improved for the 2008 rally?

The MPR13 was competitive out of the box and, as we saw on last Dakar Rally, strength and reliability were built into is DNA from the outset. "The drivers have always found it to be a nicely balanced and significant groundwork went into weight distribution and suspension performance to produce a car that was both safe and comfortable to drive over the sort of distances you cover on the Dakar. The MPR13 also boasts excellent traction and cooling performance, including the engine, the dampers and the other assemblies prone to heat. We wouldn't be unduly concerned if this year's Dakar turned out to be exceptionally hot. "The current Montero/Pajero Evolution is a well-sorted car but I believe there is little we can do to take its development much further. The most recent tests essentially focused on the suspension with a view to making it even easier to drive and thereby minimize the strain put on the drivers.

What effect have the new technical regulations announced in April had on the MPR13?

The new regulations dictate the use of an even smaller airrestrictor for the engine and the mandatory switch from a six- to a five-speed gearbox which is a difficult handicap to overcome for a petrol-engined car like the MPR13. Our mission was basically to select the ratios that would give us the best compromise between performance and reliability since each gear clearly has to cope with greater constraints in a five-speed box.

How much testing has the team done for the 2008 Dakar and to what extent did the different events you contested in 2007 contribute to the car's development?

We covered around 7,000km in Morocco, where we were able to run on all the different types of terrain we are likely to encounter on the Dakar. We also did a certain amount of testing in France. We returned to Morocco for tyre tests with our partner BFGoodrich. "The different events we contest during the year offer little chance to undertake any real development work, although they do allow us to validate and evaluate the endurance of certain solutions that result from testing.

Have there been any developments on the tyre front?

The Dakar rules say that we must choose a single tyre for the entire rally. We have done some valuable testing with BF Goodrich but we will essentially run the same tyre in 2008 that we used on the 2007 event. The Rock T/A has a long, successful record and it is always reassuring to run with a proven product on the Dakar.