"The Acropolis rally has always been the most important event of our annual programme. Therefore I have to admit that I am a little excited, especially this year that we will be using a top line car and we have no excuse on not performing well in front of our fans," he added.
"Ten days ago we had a test in Sardinia in order to familiarise ourselves with the Focus WRC07 and in order to set it up according to our needs. At the beginning of the test I found the car far away from my driving style, but thanks to Roman Kresta's assistance we have managed to come to a very good result.
"I am now looking forward to driving the car in the stages that we know well. I believe that the Pirelli tyres are very strong this year, but they will be the key factor in this year's event."
Suzuki WRT:
[
Toni Gardemeister, car #11 and Per-Gunnar Andersson, car #12]
Suzuki still after a two-car finish.
Suzuki boss Nobuhiro Tajima has reiterated that he wants to see his team try and get both cars to the finish on the Acropolis Rally, something the outfit has struggled so far to do.
While reliability has undeniably been an issue with the SX4 WRC this season and it has only finished on four out of twelve attempts, the last event in Sardinia was encouraging and Per-Gunnar Andersson had a faultless run to finish ninth and pick up the final manufacturers' point.
Tajima now wants to see further progress and while the Greek event is renowned as a car killer and has a fearsome reputation, modifications have been made to the SX4 WRC to enable it to cope with the rough conditions, including increasing the under-floor protection and making improvements to the cooling system, as ambient temperatures are expected to be high.
"When we embarked upon our debut season this year, we knew from the beginning that it would be very tough - and this has been amply proved," said Tajima.
