Banbury's Subaru World Rally Team driver Petter Solberg is looking to erase memories of a painful Rally Catalunya with a podium on the Tour de Corse this weekend.

The former world champion was again out of sorts two weeks ago as Subaru's struggles continued in Spain.

Solberg was beaten by a pair of unfancied Skodas en route to seventh place but he hopes for better in Corsica this weekend.

"The Tour de Corse is a very good event," he said.

"I think compared to Rally Spain the stages and the asphalt will suit us better. "In the past the Corsican roads were more abrasive as the surface was much older, however nowadays there's not so much of the old tarmac left. On the whole our car and tyres match the event very well.

"My objective is to try for a podium again. That's my aim, we'll just have to see how we get on."

Subaru's engineering director Steve Farrell insists the team have learned from their Spanish struggle and approach Corsica with a new-found optimism.

The former world champions had high hopes of a title challenge this year but have been outclassed by the Citron and Ford, with Solberg a massive 26 points adrift of champion Sebastien Loeb already.

But Farrell said: "We're looking forward to the Tour de Corse with optimism.

"We've historically had good results in the event and there's no reason why that should change.

"We've learnt from the lessons of Spain and spent a lot of time at the end of that event fine-tuning the car. We have got to look at Spain and Corsica as completely different events."

Despite Ford driver Marcus Gronholm's best efforts, Loeb appears to be cruising towards a third consecutive world title.

He has faced the difficulty of switching to the semi-private Kronos team in the wake of Citroen's withdrawal. But he insists his success so far has vindicated that decision.

"On all four terrains we have fought for victory," he added.

"This means that we are still on the pace and it's not a dream to hope I can defend the title with the Kronos team.

"I chose this arrangement because I believed it could work. To have the confirmation is good news.

"That said, we also realised during the four first events that it will be anything but easy.

"Of course we were not naive enough to imagine we would relive such an exceptional season as last year. Now it's clear the margin isn't huge."