Marcus Gronholm admits he is looking forward to returning to the World Rally Championship in Portugal this weekend following a successful two-day test of his Prodrive-run Subaru Impreza in Spain last week.

The double-WRC title winner will make his first outing in the series since retiring from full-time competition at the end of the 2007 campaign, having been given the chance of a one-off outing in an evolution of the Impreza WRC2008 used last season by Petter Solberg and Chris Atkinson.

The Finn carried out a two-day test close to the Portuguese border last week and admitted that he was confident for his comeback event.

“I have the same feeling I had when I last drove competitively nearly 18 months ago,” he said. “The test was good, the car ran well and we made some improvements to the set up of the car. All I have to do now is to remember how to make my pace notes!”

Gronholm will run out of the same service area as the Adapta Subaru of Mads Ostberg, with the youngster having joined Gronholm for the recent test session.

“We had a very good day of testing,” he said. “I am really happy with the final set up we achieved and I have good confidence in the car.”