This could be a big year for County Durham rally driver Guy WIlks. He has joined Suzuki and will be competing in both the British Rally Championship and the Junior World Rally Championship.

Assistant Sports Editor Matt Westcott talks to him

HE'S touted as the next Richard Burns or Colin McRae but Guy Wilks aims to stamp his own name on the world rally scene, starting with victory in his own backyard.

The 23-year-old from Bishop Auckland is Britain's fastest-rising star and this season will compete in both the Junior World Rally Championship and the Kwik-FitPirelli British Rally Championship.

Wilks recently teamed up with Suzuki after leaving Ford behind and will use a 1.6 litre Ignis Super 1600 in both events. Local fans will get a chance to see him in action in the North-East between April 23 and 24. That is when the Pirelli International Rally comes to Gateshead and Kielder Forest and Wilks aims to be at the head of the queue come the end.

"It's very important that I do well in my own backyard, " he said.

"It's my home international rally in that the start is only 30 miles up the road and obviously I have got friends and family and peers around here. It's very important for me that I do well in front of them and I really want to show them what I am capable of."

Suzuki clearly believe they know what Wilks is capable of.

The Japanese manufacturer lured him to their team after witnessing his exploits at the wheel of his Ford Puma last year.

"They had been watching me for a while, " he said. "They were quite impressed with my speed and myself as a driver.

"The car I had last year was an old one really and basically the (Suzuki) team manager was getting quite annoyed.

"He thought I was competing with his cars when I shouldn't have been able to in the car I was in.

"He thought I was getting extremely good results in a car that was well past its sell-by date."

Suzuki approached Wilks and expressed their desire to get him on board. With the Ignis rated as probably the best car in the Super 1600 class it did not take him long to make up his mind.

"The Ignis suits my driving style and I'm certain it will be reliable and a real force to be reckoned with in the BRC, " said Wilks, who has been able to get in some miles behind the wheel, although not as many as he might have hoped.

"I went out to Japan to do it officially just before Christmas and we then did the Monte Carlo rally at the start of the year, which is the first round of the Junior World Championship.

"That didn't go too well. We didn't finish, having slid off the road on the first day and, unfortunately, there weren't enough spectators to get us back on, which was a bit frustrating.

"But never mind, it happens on that rally. It's so tricky, it's effectively a tarmac rally but there's such varying conditions with the altitude in the Alps. You are going from wet roads to ice and snow in the same stage and it's a lottery on tyre choice. Unfortunately, we got the wrong tyres and that was it.

"That is the only rally we have done between then and now. But as soon as we do the Pirelli rally it goes fairly hectic."

Hectic is something of an understatement. From the NorthEast Wilks and co-driver Phil Pugh head off testing before travelling to Wales, then Greece and Scotland.

"It's like that throughout the summer because the second round ofthe Junior World Championship isn't until the end of May, " he said.

"That's almost a four-month gap between the two rallies and by then the British Rally Championship will have started."

Wilks is as down to earth as they come but that doesn't mean he doesn't set himself lofty targets.

"This season as far as the British Championship is concerned there is only one ambition - to go and win it, " he said.

"We finished third in our first year of trying and, like I said before, that was in a car that was maybe past its sell-by date.

"This car is right up there - latest specification. There is no reason why we can't win the British Championship and although we haven't had a great start to the Junior World Rally Championship there is no reason why we cannot do well.

"Everybody wants to win it but at the same time I think we have a realistic chance of doing it. We've only had one round out of seven so far and there's still six scoring rounds left.

"You can almost guarantee that everyone in the championship is going to have one DNF (did not finish), possibly two.

"Obviously, it puts more pressure on us that we have had our DNF in the earliest round but we are still confident."

Published: 13/04/2004