I've been surprised how well the Minis did on tarmac. I'm no great fan of the Countryman, so I guess I was biased against it. However a low centre of gravity seems to have become as important in rally cars as in track cars, and in that case why would you start with the Countryman? - except that it's easy to make a 4WD rally car out of it as it's 4WD already. The Fords and Citroens the Mini is competing against are rally car specials as those brands don't make 4WD versions of their road cars.
OK, Prodrive who are making the Mini rally cars know more about doing that than most people have forgotten, but all the same it's a few years since they ran a competitive rally team.
But when you watch the Countryman is looks a bit 'steady' - other cars look faster, particularly on sharp bends. But it's making the same times, so I guess this demonstrates that it's such a good rally car, at least on tarmac, that it doesn't look to be trying too hard. So give it a year's race development and it might become the dominant make on tarmac.
