China Rally is the third APRC event for Proton and the second for Scotland’s Alister McRae, read his interview with APRC TV at Thursday’s shakedown.

THIS EVENT IN CHINA IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FROM THE PREVIOUS ROUND IN INDONESIA?

Yeah for sure the only moisture in Indonesia was the sweat, yea completely different.

WHAT ABOUT THE ROADS, VERY TWISTY AND VERY MUDDY?

A lot of twisty and narrow, and a lot of climbing uphill, with tight hairpins and alot of mud lying about.

HOW DO YOU THINK THAT IS GOING TO SUIT THE PROTON?

I think the downhill will be good, while going up hill you rely a bit more on the torque of engine. Without the torque you’re going to have a lot of wheel spin. Really until we get out there we’re not going to know.

ARE THERE SOME NEW DEVELOPMENTS AND PARTS FOR THE CAR FOR THIS EVENT?

Yes there’s been some work on the suspension and here we’re going to use the mud tyre, which hopefully will work better, we did a small test prior to the rally and it felt really good and looking forward to it.

THERE’S SOME GOOD INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION IN THE EVENT.

Yes, you’ve got all the APRC guys and then Chinese Championship competitors like David Higgins, Salo, Valamaki that are very quick and have been rallying here all year. I’m sure they’re out to prove they’re quicker than the APRC boys.

THIS EVENT WILL GIVE YOU A GOOD GUAGE ON WHERE THE PROTON IS IN TERMS OF DEVELOPMENT?

For sure, it will be good for Proton but the main thing is to get a good clean run here, maybe not go as quick as it can go and try and get to the end with no problems. Then we head back to Scotland and we’ll give a real push next weekend.