Petter Solberg WRT

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Originally Posted by Viking

In fact Petter have always said he is better on gravel and tarmac than snow :)

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Petter was in almost all the tarmac events in the past years slower than Atkinson and even Sarrazin with the same cars.

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Originally Posted by urabus-denoS2000

There is a thing called "Homologation" that prevents privateers making an Xsara with a C4 engine,with a Focus 05 suspension and Focus 06 diffs,fABIA 05 gearbox,........

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Yes, if not he maybee could put a 307 engine in the Xsara...

@Wim

I think you have to check your statistics ;)

I guess that Petter will start focus on 2010 sooner than planned if he can not get together a package that will give him equipment to fight for the podium, so his options are:

- Get the right parts, and electronic for the Xsara
- Buy another car (Ford)
- Quit the 09 WRC season, and concentrate on 2010, and maybe a few IRC/P WRC events for testing purposes.

But hopefully he can get the Xsara in top shape for Cyprus, to help Citroen fight off the Focus Armada !!

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Originally Posted by Sulland

- Get the right parts, and electronic for the Xsara
- Buy another car (Ford)
- Quit the 09 WRC season, and concentrate on 2010, and maybe a few IRC/P WRC events for testing purposes.

But hopefully he can get the Xsara in top shape for Cyprus, to help Citroen fight off the Focus Armada !!

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1- is a dream.
2- same rules from Ford team.
3- Best solution.

To help Citroën? Are you entirely crazy? ;)

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Originally Posted by grugsticles

If Petter cant get a C4 from Citreon, whats stopping him getting a C4 engine going on the info I read on here that the C4 and the Xsara have different engines. One would assume the engines arnt actually that different and the basic geometry are the same.
Even if the difference is just in the tuning of the engine, wouldnt Citreon rather boast about their star driver (Loab) beating an opposition that isnt handy capped to begin with?

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They are a totally different engine!!!!!

The XU series has its roots in the early 80's whereas the EW engines have their roots in the late 90's

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSA_XU_engine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSA_EW/DW_engine

Then you'll have an engine which doesn't match up to the transmission and various other things and of course homologation which just means you can't swap an engine from a new model into an car which IIRC never had the EW engines fitted when on sale. You can lengthen (as PSA did with the XU7JP4) or shorten the stroke of the engine to get a 2l capacity but you can't go grabbing engines which were never fitted to the car. It just doesn't work like that.

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Originally Posted by Sulland

I guess that Petter will start focus on 2010 sooner than planned if he can not get together a package that will give him equipment to fight for the podium, so his options are:

- Get the right parts, and electronic for the Xsara
- Buy another car (Ford)
- Quit the 09 WRC season, and concentrate on 2010, and maybe a few IRC/P WRC events for testing purposes.

But hopefully he can get the Xsara in top shape for Cyprus, to help Citroen fight off the Focus Armada !!

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Petter is talking about plan a,b and c where

A- works team(M1), top spec car
B- PSWRT, Citroen, car served in France
C- PSWRT, Ford, car served in GB

He says only wrc is an option this year, but he is open to test other cars.

I have information that back in 2008 Gronholm tested Petter-s S14 WRC, and he was 0.7-1 sec per km faster even without modifing set up for his needs! So if this is true than Gronholm with S14 can challenge Loeb`s pace with C4,
than it is only problem in Petter not in car. Is anybody have this info?
I received this info from one mechanic who was at Rally GB 2008, in Motoring team which are driving Subarus in Gr.N

I assume if the Xsara keeps failing, his testing with Proton will be brought forward, and he may even enter an event in the WRC/NRC? Is that likely?

According to TV2 in Norway, Petter says in a SMS that he in yesterdays meeting with Citroen were promised that they will give him support before Rally Cyprus. They will service the whole car, and fix the engine so he will get rid of the engine problems from this weekend. he says "new" engine, but I presume it's meant a fully checked engine, and not a completely new engine?

For those who understand norwegian.

http://www.tv2sporten.no/ovrig/article2572559.ece

The article hints that if the Xsara doesn't prove more competetive in Cyprus, he might go for Ford the rest of the season.