Despite notching up its best-ever result in the World Rally Championship last time out in New Zealand, Suzuki is exp♏ecting things to ꦗbe a lot tougher this week as the series heads to Spain and back to asphalt.

Suzuki will start the event with the same bas𝕴e set-up that it utilised in Germany just over a month ago - the last time competitors competed on sealed surface roads - and while all of the team were encouraged when Toni Gardemeister scored a valuable manufacturers' point in Trier, the👍 Rally de Espana is very different.

Indeed it is a more 'normal' asphalt event and the stages tend to be a lot smoother and quicker. Accurate pace notes are also a must in Spain, as the racing line must be described as precisely as possible to shave off the vital tenths of a second that make the diffe𓆏rence between winning and losing.

"Catalunya will be a very difficult rally for us, as it is extremely fast 🤪and there is a lot of strong opposition," said Shusuke Inagaki,ღ the director of the Suzuki World Rally Team, ahead of what is only the SX4 WRC cars fourth outing on the 'black stuff'.

"The priority will be to𝕴 sustain the level of reliability we have recently shown and try out some new asphalt settings, which will be extremely useful when we move on to Corsica just one weekend lat꧑er.

"After Germany we came up with a few ideas as to how the car could be improved on asphalt. In Spain we will now have the chance🌳 to see if th♔ose ideas will work. It's a very big challenge but that is why we are here."

Toni Gardemeister and Per-Gunnar Andersson🌺 meanwhile are both a bit more optimistic and while the former has only done the event around Salou once, he has done fiv🦹e Catalunya rallies in total.

"I've not driven 𒆙the Catalunya Rally since 2005, so I don't really know what to expect. It's an e😼vent that I like, but it's not always liked me in the past!" said Toni. "For some reason we've often had little problems on this rally that have prevented us from getting a good result.

"It won't be easy because𝐆 we have many opponents, but if we have a good level of reliability I think that we can score points."

Andersson in contrast has fond memories of the Catalunya stages after claiming his first Junior World Rally Championship win on asphalt in Spain🔯 in 2004. The young Swede - the reigning Junior World Rally champion - took the J-WRC h💮onours again last year in Spain and is also aiming for a top-eight result.

"Tಞhere are a number of things to look out for on this rally, in particular the way to cut the corners. If you cut th♛e corners too deeply you can damage the car but if you do not cut them enough then your stage time will be slow.

"We've got some small💧 improvements on the SX4 WRC for this event including some new differential settings, which should make it easier to drive. I still don't have a lot ꦑof experience on asphalt but I think we can have a good run," the 28 year-old summed-up.