Photo Credit: Citroen Racing Yesterday the speculation regarding Citroen Racing's participation in the WRC beyond 2016 was ended, as the division announced their plans for the future. The exciting news for us rally fans is that Citroen are going to compete in the WRC from 2017 and beyond, but in order to develop their new car for 2017 that will meet the new technical regulations, they will not compete as a works outfit in 2016. They will however continue in the WTCC for 1 final year, in which they have been drivers and constructors champions for 2 years running in their first 2 years. However, more big news has broken, as the Citroen WTCC team has now been cut to just 2 entrants for defending champion Jose Maria Lopez and 4 times champion Yvan Muller, meaning WRC legend Sebastien Loeb has been left without a place in the team. Subsequently he has now gone from red to blue and has signed with Peugeot to compete in rally raid. Quite frankly, it will be very strange seeing Sebastien represent another manufacturer other than Citroen for a full year of competition. The big question though that may be on your mind is what does this mean for the 2015 Citroen works WRC drivers Kris Meeke, Mads Ostberg and even Stephane Lefebvre who looks on the fringes of a fully fledged WRC campaign. Photo Credit: Citroen Racing Well the honest answer to that question is nobody knows. It has been well documented that Kris and Mads' future within the team was not secure, but little did we know that the team would be disappearing for 2016! We all laughed when Kris Meeke commented at the end of Wales Rally GB that his garden is overgrown when Julian Porter asked him about his WRC future, but he may be out with the lawnmower more often than he was expecting. It is expected that Sebastien Loeb will have some kind of test and development role for the new 2017 WRC Citroen given his experience and relationship with the Citroen engineers, but will the team retain the services of Meeke and Ostberg to chip in as well? And if so, will the two be happy with a year away from competition on the sidelines? It is hard to know, and with the emergence of Stephane Lefebvre too, Citroen have a potential pickle on their hands regarding drivers. The team will still have presence in the 2016 WRC though, with the Junior WRC category being for Citroen DS3 R3's and the 2015 winner of that series Quentin Gilbert will contest the 2016 WRC2 at the wheel of a DS3 R5. Photo Credit: Wikipedia Of course, it is worth remembering that this isn't the first time Citroen have skipped a season to develop a new car. In fact it was exactly 10 years ago, in 2006, that the team pulled out as a works outfit to develop the C4 WRC for 2007. Sebastien Loeb and Dani Sordo were picked up by Kronos Racing who ran a team of 2 Citroen Xsara WRC's in that year, so it isn't beyond the realms of possibility that Meeke and Ostberg may yet be in the 2016 WRC in a Citroen, but I personally don't see anybody that's likely to step in and run a couple of DS3's but I may be proved wrong.
Thinking more about the future of the drivers, it's also worth considering the 2017 return of Toyota, and the current M-Sport situation. Toyota have test and development drivers but no rally drivers signed for the 2017 season, so Meeke, Ostberg or Lefebvre may fancy facing a brand new challenge and jumping ship to Tommi Makinen's outfit should that opportunity arise. And neither Elfyn Evans or Ott Tanak are secure at Malcolm Wilson's squad either, so could we see either Meeke or Ostberg driving for the blue oval? Only time will tell, but as we know it their future for 2016 at least looks even more uncertain perhaps than it did this time last week, despite Citroen's long term commitment to the sport.
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WRCArticles covering the World Rally Championship Archives
January 2018
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