The final round of the 2008 P-WRC is already upon us, nearly 10 months after the opening round of the championship took place in Sweden.

Uncharacteristically for the SUBARU-equipped runners, this is the first time in five seasons that it isn’t one of their cars fighting for the crown as we head into the final stretch. Despite that, the fight is all there to play for in this, the last challenge of the season.

Wales Rally GB sports the biggest entry of the entire P-WRC season - with no fewer than seven IMPREZA-equipped nominated entries competing. The only stars not in attendance are defending champion Toshi Arai and Russian young-gun Evgeniy Vertunov.

As expected, the final round takes place on the muddy - and often very slippery stages of the Welsh forests - in what is sure to be one of the most daunting weekends of the entire season. It’s a great way to round things off then! Agreed.

This time of year, the Welsh stages should provide a real challenge for the crews, the wetter sections promising to be very slippery indeed. Huge excitement for the fans, though as there are some excellent viewing spots on a variety of the three days’ tests.

Conditions can also be trying in the form of the often very heavy fog in the forests. This, combined with the lower temperatures expected, might even precipitate light snow.

Prior to this event, the P-WRC pre-event test took place in forestry stages not far from a few of this weekend’s tests. Coordinating the whole thing, STI Group N Project General Manager George Donaldson had the following comments after Monday’s daylong acclimatization test.

STI Group N Project General Manager George Donaldson:

“At the Monday pre-event test we had five SUBARU crews present; there was Jari Ketomaa, Teemu Arminen, the new Team Sidvin India driver Gaurav Gill (replacing regular Naren Kumar), Nasser Al Attiyah and Spyros Pavlides. We had a great day’s test. The conditions were treacherous - very, very icy in the morning - and in the afternoon, a slight layer of mud appeared; though it was still frozen underneath. The forecast is predicting that it may well stay frozen, and get snow showers over the next five or six days - so we’re looking at a very, very tricky rally. This has made the test doubly-important.

One of our cars was not present at the test - that was Patrik Flodin. He tested last week in Sweden in similar conditions. We’re hopeful he’ll be in good shape - and of course, he knows this rally quite well. He’s competing in the Uspenskiy Rally Team URT entry. We had a great day’s test, the Indian driver Gil acclimatizing himself well to the conditions - he did a lot of kilometres. Jari Ketomaa was playing a lot with different engine mapping settings etc - and with some suspension settings. Teemu Arminen was just getting acclimatised to the conditions - so interesting here for the Finns. It’s his first time here - so interesting slippery conditions for the Finns - but they’re used to that so& .. I expect Teemu Arminen to go very, very well here - I won’t predict him winning - but he’s definitely podium material.

“Also, it’s great to have Nasser Al Attiyah back in the fold - after another successful MERC championship tile victory for him.

“As always, Nasser - the consummate sportsman, doing a very serious test, was there from the opening minutes of the day, and stayed right to the end. The control tyre here is not really able to deal with ice at these temperatures - the rubber really starting to work until they reach 50 degrees Centigrade - but the highest temperature reached all day was 32 degrees. With this information, it’s going to be very hard to get the tyres up to performance temperature.”

With the stages being frozen up to 15cms below the surface, this is anyone’s game to play for!