Originally Posted by
Fast Eddie WRC
From Autosport:
Ostberg to miss Rally Finland in favour of R5 testing
One man who won't be in Estonia or Finland is Mads Ostberg. The Norwegian - who finished second on last year's Rally Finland in the team's full WRC squad - wants Citroen to focus on the development of the C3 R5 before it returns to fast gravel.
Given the high-speed nature of the next round of the series, the concern is for front-end grip as the air gets underneath and lifts the car's nose over the jumps.
"We need a lip at the front of the car," said Ostberg, "this would help, but I have been talking about this since Sweden. I said back then that it would be difficult to do Finland if we didn't have this work and it hasn't come, so we don't go. "I was supposed to do Finland, but I'm pulling [on] the brake a little bit now. I don't want to commit to doing more unless we do more work with the car. The car is getting older and the others are coming with new cars and we need to work on this; I am trying to change the philosophy with the car to make it quicker, but now we see if they listen to me or not. Really, it hurts a lot not to do Finland. I wanted to do it, I want to do it, but we are not prepared for it - simple as that."