Suzuki has successfully completed the all-gravel Rally Great Britain, the second World Championship Rally of the Japanese firm's testing programme this year.

Despite the extremely difficult and slippery conditions, Finnish driver Sebastian Lindholm got the all-new SX4 WRC to the end of the event in order to accumulate more valuable testing distance and try out some different set-ups.

Suzuki has embarked on its first gravel rally with the all-new SX4 WRC, after Finns Sebastian Lindholm and Tomi Tuominen took the ceremonial start for the Rally Great Britain this evening in Cardiff.

During the morning, the SX4 WRC had its first taste of gravel action at the shakedown test near Swansea: a last-minute opportunity to finalise settings and refine the car before the competitive stages start tomorrow. Nonetheless Suzuki is still in the testing and development phase with the all-new SX4 WRC, which will only embark on its first full season in 2008.

Suzuki returned to the Rally Great Britain on leg two of the event, after the SX4 WRC's gravel debut was interrupted by a stone that damaged a brake pipe. Sebastian Lindholm, Suzuki's test driver, started the event with the intention of accumulating as many kilometres as possible in order to continue the all-new car's development programme.

This morning's conditions were very foggy and also extremely unlucky for Lindholm's Suzuki, which encountered the rogue stone on the very first stage. The Finn tried to fix the problem but it proved to be impossible. After driving slowly through the second stage, the team decided that it would be best to recover the SX4 WRC to the service park in order to fully investigate the issue and be sure of running at full speed tomorrow.

The Suzuki SX4 World Rally Car driven by Sebastian Lindholm had no problems throughout day two's six challenging special stages, which were followed by a run through the spectator superspecial at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium. This unique stage is the only one on this year's World Rally Championship to be entirely held indoors, and before the main event it also hosted the Suzuki Swift World Contest, for identical Swift Sport Group N cars. The winner of round two was Frenchman Nicolas Bernardi, who gave the SX4 WRC its world debut in Corsica nearly two months ago.

Car news - Suzuki SX4 WRC n.19:
The Suzuki engineers continued to assess the car in the mud and gravel of Great Britain, having been pleased by the general level of reliability of the SX4 WRC on its very first loose-surface event. On the opening day, the team was hit with bad luck when a sharp stone severed a brake pipe but on the remaining two legs the car ran reliably and consistently all day. Lindholm worked at refining suspension settings on the final day of the rally, which was again characterised by extremely bad weather.

Driver news:
Sebastian Lindholm has been responsible for the gravel development of the SX4 WRC since the car's inception and he enjoyed confirming the settings established during private testing in competition on Rally Great Britain.

"We've done a lot of useful work throughout this event, and gathered a lot of information that will be crucial for the future," said the 46 year-old Lindholm, who last competed on the Rally Great Britain in 1998 finishing fifth. "Our objective from the beginning of this rally was simply to get to the end: we weren't even looking at the stage times or taking any risks.

The conditions throughout all three days were very bad, but this is typical of Wales so it was a very good learning experience for us."

Team news:
The Suzuki World Rally Team came away from the Rally Great Britain with plenty of information that will be vital for the car's development in the future. Nobuhiro Tajima, team principal, commented: "We are very pleased with the progress that has been made on the Rally Great Britain, thanks to all the hard work from our test team and drivers. In extreme weathers we have gained a lot of data, tested many things and have had quite a few problems that we have had to solve. If we had encountered no problems at all then I would have been very worried.

Setting fast times was not our objective this weekend. Overall throughout the entire testing programme with the SX4 WRC we consider all our experiences, both good and bad, to have been very valuable. Our testing objectives for 2007 have been fulfilled and the experience gained has put us in a much better position than when we began. Next year will be a new start for the Suzuki World Rally Team: testing is over now and for 2008 a new strategy will begin with a new team. We look forward to our fresh challenges coming up!"