Skoda Fabia WRC receives FIA homologation.

The Skoda Fabia WRC has successfully passed its vital FIA homologation inspection and has now been cleared to make its WRC debut at Rallye Deutschland, round eight of the 2003 World Rally Championship, on July 24-27.

The Skoda Motorsport driver line-up for that event will be the current pairing of Didier Auriol/Denis Giraudet and Toni Gardemeister/Paavo Lukander.

Homologation is the process by which the FIA [motorsport's governing body] checks that any car complies with the technical regulations for the World Rally Championship. Without the FIA homologation, no car is able to take part in international rallies.

The Skoda Fabia WRC was launched at the Geneva Motor Show in March this year and is based on the new Fabia RS model that was also unveiled at the same time. The FIA inspectors, joined as usual by a representative of another competing team - in this case Peugeot - visited the Skoda Motorsport Team headquarters in Mlad? Boleslav over the past three days.

They confirmed that the Fabia's transformation from road car to World Rally Car had been completed correctly within the regulations.

The inspectors were satisfied with what they had seen and the Fabia WRC received its formal homologation papers on Tuesday July 1 in good time for the car's scheduled debut later in the month.

"This is the next step for the Skoda Fabia WRC, " said Skoda Auto director of motorsport Petr Kohoutek, "FIA homologation means we are able to compete with the car and we can now make our final preparations for the car's debut at the Rallye Deutschland."