Changes to the Production Rally Car (PRC) regulations should enable Molly Taylor to be more competitive in this year's Australian Rally Championship.
Taylor will drive a brand new Subaru WRX STi in this weekend's Forest Rally in Western Australia, with the team confident of a strong result.
The 2019 rule changes means that the Craig Brooks’ Devonport-based Orange Motorsport Engineering team have built a car lighter than Taylor's 2018 car, which she crashed at Rally Australia last November.
The car will feature polycarbonate windows all round (other than the windscreen), and a carbon boot lid.
Suspension geometry changes mean that cars no longer have to have the standard pivot points, and that control arms can be longer or shorter than the original units.
"We haven't swallowed up too much of the geometry changes yet," team boss Craig Brooks told RallySport Magazine.
"It's quite complex, and it's easy to make the handling worse rather than better, so we're taking a measured approach to start with."
The new car will be a similar weight to the car that Brooks ran last year, and which driver Steve Glenney crashed heavily in South Australia.
Molly Taylor tested her new Subaru in Tasmania before the Forest Rally.
"We've made some improvements in the build, which has been possible because we've building a PRC shell from scratch, rather than converting an old Group N car," Brooks added.
"The shell has been really well engineered, and we've had help from Payce Engineering to built a stronger and lighter car."
The car's weight has been moved further towards the centre and lowered as much as possible, although the team are hoping to move the weight even further back as the season progresses.
"Molly tested the car and really liked the balance of it.
"She's always performed really well in WA, and if we can give her the right tool for the job and the car continues to grow and improve, then she'll remain competitive."
Molly Taylor will suit up for Subaru and Craig Brooks this weekend in WA.
Taylor will start fourth on the road in this weekend's event, a position that could prove ideal on the event's famous ball-bearing gravel surface.
"Can we win on outright speed alone," asks Brooks? "Probably not, but consistency wins championships.
"Last year we had two crashes and finished second. Had we only had one crash we would have won the championship.
"The team are pretty buoyant heading into this season," he said.
Taylor's biggest rivals this weekend will be the two-car Toyota team of Harry and Lewis Bates, Richie Dalton in a Ford Fiesta, and the Subaru WRX of local hot-shot Tom Wilde.
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