On the SATA Rally Açores in May Alén spun on the final day while holding onto fourth place; however problems restarting the Super 2000 car cost him 12 minutes and he eventually finished in a distant eighteenth place.

Abarth factory driver Anton Alén has vowed to bounce back from his torrid first half of the season – and he’s aiming for a win on the next Intercontinental Rally Challenge (IRC) round, this coming weekend’s Rally Russia.

The 26-year-old Finn, who is the son of rally legend Markku, is fresh from testing the Grande Punto Abarth S2000 in Italy earlier this week and is confident the car will be good enough to carry him to another Rally Russia victory, following his maiden IRC win with the Italian brand in 2007. Alén finished second on the Rally Russia last year, just missing out on back-to-back wins when his Grande Punto Abarth was slowed by a puncture.

So far this year, Alén has run as the leading Abarth driver on every event he’s started, but mechanical problems and an accident have combined to limit him to a single finish on the SATA Rally Açores although this was well outside the top-ten.

Alén agonisingly suffered a clutch failure on the very final road section of the IRC's season opening Rallye Monte Carlo having completed all the timed stages and sitting comfortably in a points-paying sixth place. In Brazil, the second round of the IRC, on the rally de Curitiba, a rally his father won 30 years ago, Alén was lying in second place early on but damaged his suspension after hitting a rock on the third stage and having to make emergency roadside repairs he was put out of the reckoning. On the SATA Rally Açores in May Alén spun on the final day while holding onto fourth place; however problems restarting the Super 2000 machine cost him 12 minutes and he eventually finished in a distant eighteenth place. For the all-asphalt surfaces of the Belgium Ypres Rally last month Alén, who is more at home on gravel, was dropped in favour of experienced local driver Bernd Casier. However the rapid Belgian driver suffered a catalogue of misfortunes all rally long and ended up well outside the points positions.

Alén said this week: “You have to keep believing you can win rallies, otherwise what’s the point of competing. I firmly believe we can win again. Okay, Skoda and Peugeot have made some good steps with their car, but our car is also coming. There was nothing major in the test we just did, but the car felt good and I’m really ready for Russia. I like this event. It’s not far from the border with Finland, so the shape of the roads is quite similar to the ones I’m used to at home. It’s going to be another big fight, though. Skoda drivers Juho Hanninen and [Jan] Kopecky will be setting good times and [Giandomenico] Basso [Abarth team-mate] also made good times there last year.”