Chris Atkinson 2009

[MJW]

It certainly will be interesting to see how fast Chris will be in 2009 with the Citroen. I for one have no idea ho will it go, but if he is fast in the Citroen it might help us see how far off the pace the recent Subaru's have been. (or not)
It will also be intersting to see what car Petter ends up driving, and whether when he sees Chris in Ireland in a Citroen if that has any influence on what he drives.

[Tomi]

It certainly will be interesting to see how fast Chris will be in 2009 with the Citroen. I for one have no idea ho will it go, but if he is fast in the Citroen it might help us see how far off the pace the recent Subaru's have been. (or not)
It will also be intersting to see what car Petter ends up driving, and whether when he sees Chris in Ireland in a Citroen if that has any influence on what he drives.

Agree, I think on gravel he should easily beat Sordo and on tarmac he should be in top5, but now he for sure has a once in a lifetime chance to show what he can, if he can.

[MJW]

Chris will be the only driver "originally from another team" who has driven a C4 WRC, Aava was a JWRC driver and Conrad also (to my knowledge) no experience of anything other than a Xsara wrc.

[StevieWonder]

Agree, I think on gravel he should easily beat Sordo and on tarmac he should be in top5, but now he for sure has a once in a lifetime chance to show what he can, if he can.

yes, but be fair and have in mind, that nevertheless the C4 is a "new" car for chris and he has to learn handling and set-up of this "probably at the moment fastest" car in wrc.

Moreover I also hope for him to get some more chances in a C4 to show his pace !

[MikeD]

Like others I also think that Atkinson is a little difficult to judge. He has never really given me the impression that he's a world champion in the making, but he did have a good year this year with the Subaru. I think his benchmark should be Sordo, even though I do think that Sordo will beat him easily on every surface because he knows the car better.

PS: To be fair, then these "rides" in the C4 is so expensive that maybe it will only be 3-4 outings for Atkinson if he can't find some funding.

[Tomi]

I dont think it takes so long to get used to a new car, new tyres are much bigger deal, but to those Atkinson is used to already, "but he is not used to the car" is a good excuse.
Mäkinen won his first and only out with Ford, same with Subaru, Bosse also did not so bad in his first with Ford.
I also think Sordo is a good mark, if he cant beat him he might be in trouble to get new rides.

[jonas_mcrae]

I'm a little bit worried Atko wont get the "proper" C4 WRC. I bet Oiger will get the same as Seb and Dani (as citroen want him to shine) but will Citroen play the same thing as they did with Kronos and those rubbish Xsaras? (because of Atko comming from a different team of course)

[VFTS]

Chris will be the only driver "originally from another team" who has driven a C4 WRC, Aava was a JWRC driver and Conrad also (to my knowledge) no experience of anything other than a Xsara wrc.

Conrad Rautenbach did drive Mountain Rally in Norway january 2008. In this event he used Ex-Mikkelsen Focus WRC 05. He first had a test with the car before he did he event.

[Tomi]

I'm a little bit worried Atko wont get the "proper" C4 WRC. I bet Oiger will get the same as Seb and Dani (as citroen want him to shine) but will Citroen play the same thing as they did with Kronos and those rubbish Xsaras? (because of Atko comming from a different team of course)

For Ogier its far more difficult than for Atkinson, he has been driving WRC cars for sometime already and in the different cars the differences are after all quite marginal if you look at sec/km.
I remember Aava complaining a lot how difficult it is to find the braking spots and the way how to get in the corners when he did drive his 1st WRC event.

[curry]

Is Chris going to get a drive in the C4 before shakedown? If not then he has a steep learning curve ahead and as such I don't expect to see much out of him until probably the last day.