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

Although the team began testing with the car on asphalt in April, the SX4 WRC ꦐhas since🐲 'evolved further from the earlier prototype design' and its specifications are 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 southern Europe, the team confirmed the p💯erformance 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 compone𒊎nt 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 co🅠rners and the SX4 WRC demonstrated stable performance without encountering 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 are pleased with the progress 💛made, much more needs to be done if they want to compete with the likes of 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 faster and stronger, so we need to make sure we find eve𒊎n more spe෴ed 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-entry 2007 model the specs orig𝓀inally intended for the 2008 Championship entry model.

"We really neꦑed to go to such a distance to have a fighting chance in the WRC. We've taken time in for testing in Ja꧟pan and Europe aimed at achieving further improvement and now our car is demonstrating good performance on tarmac.

"Corsica is just a few months away, and we'll be working to 🐓steadily improve and bring the car to top shapeꦐ so we can hope to show some fast times."