Suzuki to be careful on gravel debut

The car made its full debut in Corsica earlier this season, and Suzuki are expecting the season finale to pose more of a challenge than the asphalt event did.

Suzuki World Rally Team principal Nobuhiro Tajima said: "Our mission in Britain will be exactly the same as it was in Corsica: to bring the car home in order to lean as much as we can.

"If anything gravel is an even bigger challenge than asphalt: we do not have so much experience of this surface with the car and the surfaces are a lot harder to predict.

"Rally GB is a very difficult event. Sebastien must be careful and accumulate as much data as possible for us. This is the aim."

Lindholm, a seven-time Finnish rally champion and a cousin of Marcus Gronholm, will be making his first competitive appearance with the car, as Nicolas Bernardi took the SX4 to 31st place in Corsica.

The Finn has undertaken the majority of the car's testing on gravel so far though, and he is treating the event as an opportunity to try new things on the car.

"So far, our performance in testing has been promising but there's still quite a lot of work to do and that is why we are here," said Lindholm.

"I like the car a lot, but I can think of some ways to improve it further and I will be trying those ideas out on the rally. That will be they key thing, rather than the overall result."