McRae completes GB prep with Park Systems Rally.

1995 World Rally champion, Colin McRae completed his preparations for the Wales Rally GB Saturday, when he ran on the Park Systems Stages National Rally - as the course car.

McRae and his co-driver, Nicky Grist had completed around 700 kilometres at the wheel of the Skoda Fabia WRC prior to this, including a marathon 350 kilometres on Tuesday alone, a figure representative of the total stage distance of Britain's WRC event. The three-day private test took place in Clatteringshaws Forest in the south west of Scotland, and while McRae's Skoda team-mate, Armin Schwarz took over the driving on the final day of testing Thursday, McRae then took part in the Park Stages Rally recce, before doing the one-day 100 kilometre national event as the '0' car.

"I am very happy with the Fabia. It feels really nice to drive and I was able to be up to full speed very quickly," said McRae, after completing two full WRC distances.

"It responds well to input and everything we've tried has changed the car in the way we expected so I'm confident that we will have a good set-up for the rally. The latest Reiger suspension has made it very stable in all conditions and the new Michelin BTO tyre was faster and more consistent than the older constructions every time we tried it."

Most of the test was designed to let McRae find the most comfortable settings for his WRC comeback. He worked closely with his Skoda engineers along with representatives from suspension suppliers Reiger and tyre partner Michelin, specifically evaluating the new BTO tyre that is expected to be a key factor on Rally GB. McRae was immediately running flat out on the test, hitting top speeds of over 180kph and on one of the test roads regularly recording average speeds exceeding 125kph.

"I still can't say what kind of result we can expect [on Rally GB]," he continued. "We had no comparison times to work with at the test so I think everyone will be keeping a close eye on the times at the end of the first stage this Friday! I'm not so worried about our initial results but I'd like to think that we can progress as the event goes on and be setting some really good times by Sunday."

McRae will now officially shakedown the Fabia WRC on Thursday this week. The 3.9 kilometre 'shakedown' stage is adjacent to the Swansea Rally Centre at Felindre, which is also the service area throughout the four day rally.