Suzuki has revealed that it has completed its first 'fully fledged tarmac tests' with the new SX4 WRC, which will make its ಞdebut in the FIA World Rally Championship on the Rallye de France-Tour de Corse in mid-October.

Although the team begaꦆn testing with the car on asphalt in April, the SX4 WRC has since 'evolved further from the earlier prototype design' and its specifications a﷽re said to 'already be close' to what is planned to be fielded in this season's WRC 'test' events.

"Throughout the five day tests in southeꦫrn Europe, the team confirmed the performance and reliability of the much improved car," added a statement from the Suzuki World Rally Team. "Then in♛ the course of a further five days they worked on refining the basic settings of each component to investigate further performance upgrades.

"The course selected for the latest round of testing had a layout that 🌱included big ups and downs and successive tight corners and the SX4 WRC demonstrated stable performance without encounte🌟ring any significant troubles, both through low-to-mid-speed corners and on high-speed runs."

President of Suzuki Sport, Nobuhiro Tajima meanwhile added that while they a✤re pleased with the progress made, much more needs to be done if they want to compete with the likes oಞf Citroen, Ford and Subaru. As such more testing is now planned in a 'quest to bring out more competitive performance from the Suzuki SX4 WRC'.

"The car is shaping up to an extent that I think it's competitive to quite a degree," said Tajima "But our rivals' machines are also evolving as fa🦹ster and stronger, so we need to make sure we find even mไore speed and performance for our car.

"That's why we've decided to move up our schedule and try and see if we could incorporate into our test-ꦆentry 2007 model the specs originally intended for the 2008 Champi꧂onship entry model.

"We really need to go to such a distance🔯 to have a fighting chance in the WRC. We've taken time in for testing in Japan and Europe aimed at achieving further improvement and now our car is demonstrating g🦋ood performance on tarmac.

"Corsica is just a few months awa🐻y, and we'll be working to steadily impro꧋ve and bring the car to top shape so we can hope to show some fast times."