Kresta seems to be working hard. The entry to each corner begins early with a positive and deliberate attempt to unsettle the car. And then, when the car has adopted an appropriate attitude, he jumps back on the power. His left foot is hyperactive, jumping from brake to clutch and back again as he attempts to kill the understeer. These are techniques that take years to master and are so alien to traditional theories of driving that they seem counterintuitive. To deliberately unsettle a car at high speed, on a narrow tree-lined track, takes huge self-confidence and balls the size of watermelons.
We finish the stage and Kresta tries to make sense of it all. "The technique is so different to a World Rally Car," he says. "You need to set a front-wheel-drive car up for the corner. You cannot use the power to adjust its attitude like you can in a four-wheel-drive car. It's a totally different approach."
I've barely had time to compose myself before I'm being ushered towards the Focus. A few years ago, when the World Rally Car regulations were first introduced, the cars looked frustratingly tame - as if they'd been pinched from the local dealership, even though underneath the sober skin was a million dollars' worth of highly sophisticated hardware.
Nine years on from those original WRC cars, matters have improved. The 2006 WRC car is based on the ST, the turbocharged, 225bhp sporting flagship of the second-generation Focus range, which is cruelly denied US buyers. That car already boasts a bodykit, but the WRC builds on this with the introduction of a dramatic rear wing. Add a liberal sprinkling of war paint and it starts to look as a rally car should.
It seems incredible to think that M-Sport developed this car in just 12 months from November 2004, when Ford's senior management finally decided to continue its rally program. While development on the existing Focus was suspended, a crack team led by the charismatic technical director, Christian Loriaux, set to work on an all-new car. Given that the old car was developed around the original Focus, this was no small task. The gearbox, for example, is mounted transversely on the new car, whereas it was sited longitudinally on the old model.
A significant quantity of midnight oil was burned by M-Sport before the car made its debut in Australia at the final round of the 2005 Championship. Two fastest stage times on its first outing was evidence of a job well done. Gronholm then won on his Ford debut in Monte Carlo in Januar,y following this with victory in the next round in Sweden. But it was June before he won again. In the mid-season break, Gronholm trails Citroen's Sebastien Loeb by 29 points in the Driver's Championship. "We can win more rallies, but the season is Sebastien's," he says philosophically.
Gronholm steps quietly into his office. Last year, the Ford team completed about 5,000 miles of testing and I wonder whether he ever gets bored of driving a rally car. "Not really," he says. "Sometimes testing is quite boring, but it's important. When you test, it's important to find something good, because it gives you an extra kick for the next rally. You think: 'Shit, now it's good.' "
It's no secret Gronholm struggled with his previous charge, the Peugeot 307, which lacked the handling balance of its all-conquering predecessor, the 206. "The 307 was difficult, it had too much weight in the rear," he says. "It tended to oversteer when it was loose. The Focus is better balanced, it has more rear grip. This is a nice car."