Former Mitsubishi and Hyundai WRC works driver, Alister McRae will debut the Toyota Super 2000 rally car in the FIA World Rally Championship on the Wales Rally GB this weekend.

The Scot completed a successful two-day test with the car recently and is looking forward to returning to the WRC on the last event of the 2006 season. This weekend's event will be only the second time a car built to the Super 2000 specification has completed on a WRC event - and the first for the Toyota. The car has already proved extremely successful in the South African Rally Championship and McRae has recently been appointed development driver by RED, the UK rally team which has become worldwide agent for the car.

“The car was very well put together when it arrived and the purpose of the test was to adapt the settings to suit the conditions here this weekend,” said the Scot, who has a long standing relationship with RED, having competed with them in 2004 when he took in the PCWRC. “In South Africa, the rallies are driven blind, so the base set-up was more biased towards rear wheel-drive. Therefore, the majority of the work we did over the two days was adjusting the suspension and transmission set-up to generate more traction and grip, which you need for these stages.

"Overall, it's been a very good test – we know that there is still some work to do but I feel we now have a very good base set-up for European gravel rallies and WRC events.”

Buoyed by the success of the test and the competitiveness of the car, McRae is understandably looking forward to returning to the WRC on his home event, especially as he is very familiar with it - having won the Group N category on the event in 2004 and in 2001, he was fourth overall in the Hyundai Accent WRC, the car's best result to date.

“I am really looking forward to this rally and competing on home soil again. The main objective for the weekend is to get as many miles as possible on the car and get some good feedback," he added. "The car certainly feels as quick, if not quicker, than Group N but until we get on the stages, we won't know for sure.”

Despite not having competed in the WRC for almost two years, McRae is confident that he will be back on his usual pace quickly. “I've done a few events this year but not that many in the second half of the season. So it may take a stage or two to get my eye fully in but I think that once we've got a few kilometres under our belt, we'll be able to push hard as usual. The only real unknown is how the car behaves on the very high speed sections: the test was on tighter and twisty roads, where it worked very well but I'm sure the same will be the case on the faster parts.

“This is my first time in Super 2000 in competition as well as the car's first rally outside South Africa, so if we can be matching the pace at the head of Group N or even stretching it a little, I'll be very pleased.”