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Suzuki have announced they are pulling out of the World Rally Championship due to the worldwide economic crisis.

The Japanese company, who only joined the championship in 2008 after several successful seasons in the junior category, have decided to maximise funds for “core business functions”.

A statement from Suzuki read: “In responding to the contraction of the automotive sales caused by recent global economic turmoil, Suzuki has been promptly taking possible countermeasures including the reassessment of its global production output.”

The statement continued: “The company, however, foresees the shrinking trend in longer periods of time rather than a short-term phenomenon.

“To secure its own business environment for tomorrow, the organisation reviews every aspect of the operation and decided to focus on the core business functions such as the manufacturing system, environment technologies and development of new-generation powertrains.

“As a result, Suzuki concluded to suspend WRC activities from 2009.”

Rival Japanese manufacturer Honda announced earlier this month that they were pulling out of Formula One for financial reasons.

via The Press Association

This entry was posted on Monday, December 15th, 2008 at 10:49 am and is filed under Suzuki. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.