The Subaru team put the Impreza WRC2007 through its paces recently as drivers and technicians prepared for next week's opening round of the championship in Monte Carlo.

A separate testing programme with the new Impreza WRC2008 is also well underway however, ahead of its planned launch later on in the season.

"The testing we've done so far with the car has shown no significant problems," said a pleased Paul Howarth, the team's Operations Director.

More development sessions for the new car are planned over the following weeks with Subaru's official test driver, Markko Martin.

It will be the Estonian's first experience of the WRC2008 and, aside from the Bettega Memorial Rally last December, his first taste of the WRC with the team since he last competed aboard a works Impreza alongside Petter Solberg and Richard Burns back in 2001.

Speaking of the recent runs with the WRC2008, Howarth added: "It's so important to conduct this rigorous testing from the start as it means we can eliminate elements of development we otherwise would need to do later on in the programme."

Doing so will allow the Subaru outfit "to focus more on performance and reliability when Markko starts his testing programme," Howarth concluded.