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Mini team boss David Richards says the new car's performance on its debut in Sardinia last weekend has given the squad huge encouragement.

Kris Meeke had the Mini as high as fourth on the opening morning before a throttle glitch sent him off the road, while Dani Sordo had a relatively trouble-free run to sixth place.

"I think we have shown the performance of the car," Richards declared. "We have proved what we can do and I think it has set the mark and set the standard."

He admitted it was tantalising to ponder what Meeke might have achieved had his rally been as serene as Sordo's.

"I wish Kris could have carried on the way he was in the early stages," said Richards.

"If he had carried on like that I think we would have been in a very strong position, but that is life, this is testing and we are learning as we go along.

"All signs are really encouraging and we have no real reliability problems at all that we are concerned about. We have to take a lot of positives from the event."

Although the throttle problem on Meeke's car reappeared when he restarted on Saturday, Richards said there were no concerns that it would be an ongoing issue.

"We know what the problem is but we didn't have a solution to it here, and anything we did would have been compromised and may have resulted in a recurrence of the problem," he said. "I just didn't believe it was worthwhile taking that risk.

"We know how to fix it and it can be fixed in a few weeks' time with the right components."