What are Citroen playing at?

We’re in the middle of a recession and motorsport has supposedly been hit hard.

Budgets have been capped and drivers, teams and events are struggling to find sponsorship, so why is Citroen continuing to develop the C4 WRC HYbrid4?

So Citroen want a Hybrid World Rally Car under their flashy gazebo do they? Very impressive but wake up guys, it's not going to happen.

The car, which had it’s first competitive test following Rally Portugal, is a partially-electric version of the WRC C4.

Apparently Citroen Racing had a desire to build a competitive yet innovative car and they’ve certainly done that.

The car has an Internal Combustion mode, behaving exactly like one of Citroen’s regular petrol C4 WRCs. An Electric Mode can also be used on road sections and in service parks to quieten the car down. Finally there is a Boost Mode which uses both the petrol engine and an electric motor to give an extra 300 Nm of torque.

Yeah, that’s all well and good, I’m very impressed with all your hard work Citroen, give yourselves a pat on the back.

It’s only a concept car at the moment but Citroen have said they are preparing for the likelihood of environmentally-friendly technologies being mandated in the World Rally Championship in the future.

Right, so if in the future the use of hybrid technology ever becomes legal Citroen will be able to react straight away.

That’s great guys, preparing for the future shows fantastic organisational skills but I just don’t understand where you’re coming from.

Last month rallying had bit of bad news…Max Mosley announced Super2000 cars would replace the World Rally Car format in the WRC from 2011.

Did Citroen not get that memo?

I love the idea of the electric mode – as well as being almost silent on non-competitive roads it’s environmently friendly so it will hush the critics.

Sure it has potential to be great but I just don’t see the point of developing a clever World Rally Car when there’s no chance of it ever seeing the light of day. Surely Citroen should be concentrating on building a brand-spanking new Super2000 car if they want to continue their dominance in rallying.

In my eyes it’s just showing off, plain and simple.

Weekly round-up 6th March to 12th March

• The Race of Champions organisers have dropped Wembley Stadium as the venue of the end of season all-star event. Organisers have apparently got five different proposals to choose from and will announce their decision in the next few weeks.
• Dani Sordo has been testing Citroen’s C4 WRC HYbrid4 in Portugal this week. It was the first time the car has had a proper asphalt test on competitive roads. The car features different modes; an Internal Combustion mode, where the car behaves exactly like one of Citroen’s regular petrol C4 WRCs, Electric mode which is used on road sections and in service parks, by engaging a 125kW electric motor the wheel wheels are only given drive to quieten the car down. Finally there is a Boost mode which uses both the petrol engine and the electric motor to give an extra 300 Nm of torque.

Sounds like a dream rally car but in today’s world of WRC the likelihood of these cars ever running competitively is next to none if Max Mosley and his ‘brilliant’ money saving ideas are anything to go by.

• According to Eurosport Petter has been testing a Grande Punto S2000 this week. Apparently Petter took part in the Abarth team test “with a view to participating in a few international rallies”. Eurosport seem to think that the “international rallies” Abarth, who are active in the IRC, referred to in their press release might indicate a possible Petter Solberg participation in an IRC event this year. – I’ll believe it when I see it, maybe he’s just working through his options for next year.

What does a Citroen C4 World Rally Car sound like?

No, I’m not looking for an answer to a bad joke.

Regarding the post below Sebastien does seem to have grasped the concept of smiling these days but his grasp of the English language is another story as highlighted by Irish TV channel RTE 2.

At least his driving is better than his English!

Weekly round-up 16th Feb to 22nd Feb

All the important news from last week in a slightly more condensed version.

• Petter Solberg could be stepping up to a Citroen C4 as early as Rally Portugal in April.

• According to Autosport two manufacturer team cars were tampered with on Rally Norway. Local drivers Henning Solberg and Mads Ostberg had their damper settings interferred with, Henning’s the night before Shakedown and Ostberg’s the night before the final leg of the rally – I’ve been to a Parc Ferme before and have been shooed away by a big, burly security guard. During the night there are at least two of these scary security staff on the gates, if this was sabotage then what were these guards doing at the time?

• Max Mosley headed off to Paris this week to chair a WRC marketing seminar to further the debate about the future of the WRC – yes, shock horror, he’s actually taking an interest in the WRC for once.

• The Ford boys jetted off on a six day test straight after a ‘disappointing’ Rally Norway. Both Jari-Matti and Mikko were testing in Sardinia in anticipation of Rally Cyprus, with two days testing on asphalt and four days on gravel Mikko said it was important the team get the right car set-up for driving on asphalt stages but with gravel tyres and suspension, a set-up never used before so it will be interesting to see how it all works out.

Current driver standings – courtesy of wrc.com

														Total
1.	S. LOEB	10	10											20
2.	M. HIRVONEN	6	8											14
3.	D. SORDO	8	4											12
4.	H. SOLBERG	5	5											10
5.	J-M LATVALA	0	6											6
6.	C. ATKINSON	4	-											4
7.	M. WILSON	2	2											4
8.	S. OGIER	3	0											3
9.	P. SOLBERG	-	3											3
10.	K. AL-QASSIMI	1	-											1
11.	U. AAVA	0	1

Rally Norway: Ford v Superhuman Seb

Last year I was lucky enough to interview Mikko Hirvonen at Rally Day, Castle Combe.

He was a great guy; really friendly, down to earth and very eager to chat to everyone in the media centre. He was also very optimistic about his prospects for 2009 and when I asked him if he thought he would be in a better position to fight Sebastien Loeb for the title he replied,

“For sure I believe so, it was about consistency this year (2008) but the speed has really come as well and I’m sure next year it’s not just being consistent, I think we’ve got the speed to win more rallies as well so we’ll definitely be making it even harder for Sebastien.”

Heading into Rally Norway Mikko and team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala were both clear favourites and I for one expected a battle between the two of them for the win. What with Sebastien’s poor showing in the snow events of the past two years, Mikko’s win in Rally Norway 2007 and Jari-Matti’s triumph in Sweden last year, I believed, perhaps naively, in Mikko’s belief that he could make the championship race harder for the five time world champ and this belief would be put into practice on this event.

It never happened. Mikko finished second and Jari-Matti third.

Rally Norway podium, a 'disappointed' Mikko takes the second position. Picture courtesy of www.motorsport.com

After the rally he was quoted as saying the event had been ‘crazy at times’, he was pushing both himself and his car to the absolute limit and admitted that he just couldn’t respond to Seb’s speed.

He was leading, that’s the thing that gets to me the most. Ok, it was the smallest of margins but he was beating Seb.

Once again team tactics were put into put into play in the Ford camp but taking a gamble and slowing down to secure a better road position on Day Two just didn’t pay off this time. It seems to me that the disadvantage of being first on the road is almost non-existent to Sebastien now – with his dominance over the past five years he has had so much more practice running first than his rivals can boast.

It is up to Mikko himself to prove he’s up to the standard set by Seb, not some clever tactics devised from the comfort of the service park.

Unlike many I don’t think of him as an ‘average’ driver driving an ‘average’ car. He has shown himself to have great skill but being pitted against the seemingly unstoppable superhuman force of Sebastien and his C4 he, and his car for that matter are unfairly given this label.

However, it has now got to the stage where Ford cannot take a win on an event they go into as the absolute favourites and even using tactics doesn’t help. As a fan of Mikko I find this hard to say but realistically the only chance he has of “making it even harder” for Sebastien to get the title is if Ford produce a car up to the standard of the C4, but by the time that happens the greatest driver/car combination the sport has ever seen will be long gone.