Citroen WRT

[tr4m]

Can somebody put the entire interview here ?

From reddit


Auto Hebdo No. 2190 - November 7, 2018 part 1/3

At the end of May, the Northern Irishman was sacked by Citroën. Six months later, Toyota announces its recruitment for 2019. On the occasion of the Condroz Rally, where he has reconnected with the competition, the Brit tells us how he lived this fertile period in twists and turns. Interview by Michel Lizin

FIRST, WAS YOUR EVICTION AT CITROËN A SURPRISE?

Huge. I did not expect it at all.

WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR FIRST FEELING: HARDNESS, INJUSTICE, SHAME, INCOMPREHENSION?

(Long silence) After 10 minutes, I said to my wife, "Ok. We go out and we take the family to the restaurant." We ordered a bottle of wine, ate and talked. This is often the case in motorsport: a single phone call can trigger everything, some lines can destroy everything. Unless we react.

WERE YOU STILL HAPPY IN THIS TEAM?

The behavior of the car weighed me, as well as the inertia when it came to implementing solutions. Eleven months ago, when I was laid off for the Rally Poland (2017), I proposed to the team that it be put, amicably, a premature term to our contract. His leaders refused. That's why, in May 2018, their way of doing things shocked me so much. What hurt me most is the infant wording of the mail announcing their decision, the immaturity of their words. I had promised myself not to talk about it. To remain silent. Long time.

HOW ARE YOU IN CONTACT WITH TOYOTA?

Nowadays, there is an instrument (he shows his mobile phone. Numbers are in memory. You press a button and at the other end of the line, it answers ... or not.

HAVE YOU TAKEN THE INITIATIVE?

Yes, I called all the teams.

IMMEDIATELY AFTER BEING VIRATED?

No ! At the end of May, nobody thinks of the next season. I preferred to wait for the right moment.

MORE PRECISELY…

No initiative should be taken until August. No boss is thinking of the future before Finland. This round is special. Some drivers are revealed. Others lack confidence. By their place in the calendar, Finland and Germany play a big role in your rating.

SO YOU HAVE CALLED TOMMI MÄKINEN ...

I called Malcolm (Wilson, boss of M-Sport, editor's note), Tommi and Alain Penasse (Hyundai Motorsport team manager) ...

HOW WERE YOU RECEIVED?

All answered me. I found myself faced with several proposals. I had three in the WRC, plus another, somewhere else. It helped me to have another look at what had happened in May, the words that had been used to get rid of me, to destroy my personality, put an end to my career. If what was said and written then had been the expression of the truth, it would have been finished with me as a pilot. The interest that the teams expressed to me convinced me of the opposite. That said, the ball was in their court, not in mine.

YOUR CAREER COULD HAVE STOPPED THERE ...

I did not believe it for a moment. This could not be the case. Because this text was crap! When it was spread, the reaction of other people made me understand that I was not the only one to think so.

HOW DID YOU REACT ?

Going away for several weeks from the world of the rally. I felt the need to refresh my mind. I suddenly realized that it had been a year and a half since my way of doing my job, which is my life, no longer satisfied me.

THAT IS TO SAY SINCE THE ARRIVAL OF THE C3 WRC?

Exactly!

WHY ?

There is the relationship with the car ... and with the men. I explained to the engineers how the car behaved, how one could lose control, and nothing was happening. Month after month, mutual trust faded. I made mistakes, but they were not, how would I say, "of my fact". I was trying to extract from my car what she could not give. At the start of each rally, the only instruction I received was immutable: "do everything to conquer". I was stupid enough to try to get there with a mount that could not do it. Such was my great mistake. I should have stopped much earlier aiming for the impossible. I was undermined to the point, when my contract was terminated, to consider this issue as a release. Then, very quickly, I felt the need to make sure that my career does not end because of people who do not know what they are talking about.

CAN YOU DESCRIBE THE BEHAVIOR OF THE C3 WRC?

I can only speak about what I know, what I lived, so not the new version, appeared in August 2018, in Finland. What to say ? A car is never just a piece of metal, with bolts on all four sides and things that make the hull go up and down, move away and get closer to the ground (Meeke is a mechanical engineer, a graduate from Queen's University Belfast (Editor's note). Basically, something was not right in the design of the C3 WRC. The correction of this anomaly depends on the persons responsible for its development and evolution. Personally, I could not blame a piece of metal. It's up to the staff to understand what needs to be changed ... and to execute it. Were the right people not in place? Were the budgets insufficient? The truth has never been given to me. In itself, this is not outrageous. What is it is the time it took to accept the idea that this car was born with a "wolf" making, under certain circumstances, his behavior unpredictable. Elsewhere, as on dry asphalt, provided that the coating is free of unevenness, it was exceptionally effective. Its engine is excellent. He has always been. That's why we were so good at Rally Mexico 2017. Almost all of our competitors had problems with altitude. Not us. That's why I won, even though his balance was not perfect.

BUT YOU WERE THE TEST PILOT N ° 1 OF THE C3 WRC. WOULD NOT YOU HAVE BEEN ABLE TO INFLUENCE HIS EVOLUTION?

Dozens of times, I returned this question in my head wondering how I could have behaved differently. First, I was not the "test pilot # 1" of the C3 WRC. I was the only one, without anyone to share my feelings! Then, when, more than a decade ago, Citroën developed the C4 WRC, at each test session, an Xsara WRC was present and comparisons were made. For a long time, Loeb was not satisfied with the behavior of the C4. Always, the Xsara was there to remind what was to be "a good Citroën rally". It was the same when the DS3 WRC was developed: at each session, a C4 was there. On the other hand, during the first test with the C3 WRC, then during the following ones, no DS3 WRC appeared. "Lack of budget," I was asked. I can not know if I am right, but I have the feeling that the combination of long suspension deflections and the selected geometries has given rise to an infinity of uncontrolled behavioral variations. In autumn 2017, a year and a half after starting the development of the C3, on a pre-Rally Catalunya session, surprise: a DS3 WRC was present. Loeb was there to drive, for the first time, the C3 WRC. I remember one of his appreciations: "Not bad, but I do not feel connected to the road".

KNOWING THAT, HOW COULD YOU SURVIVE MORE THAN 300 KM FROM A RALLY SPECIAL WITHOUT THREAT ON THE RAILWAY ROPE?

In 2017 in Sardinia, thanks to our favorable order of passage, Paddon and I were fighting for victory. I enter a curve without any particular difficulty, I place the car. Suddenly, she picks up. A wheel hits the embankment, the car rolls up and ends against a bridge. I show the videos to engineers, asking them how could I have, should I have done otherwise. I have not received any awnsers. I asked them if, for whatever reason, the car had to be redesigned, it would have other characteristics. They looked me straight in the eye and said, "No! ". Later, an engineer discovered something incorrect in the geometry and in the very nature of the car. It took them a year to implement the solution. Even more, since this new version made its debut this year, in Finland.

WHILE YOU WERE NO MORE THAN ...

The corrected C3 WRC, the one I was fighting for, I have never driven. Craig (Breen, Editor's note) confirmed that she was much better. In my day, it was a nightmare. We learn in difficult times, we say. These last 18 months, I do not tell you how much I learned! Early in the career, everyone - with the notable exception of Loeb - goes through difficult times. Look at Tänak: Twice fired by Malcolm Wilson before becoming, today, a must. I'm 39, but I only have three full seasons in WRC (2014, 2015 and 2017. Editor's note). I am a young person!

WHEN HAVE YOU RECEIVED A FORMAL PROPOSAL FROM TOYOTA?

Relatively late. I suppose Tommi wanted to be certain that Lappi was leaving (at Citroën, Ed.). When he got the confirmation, he asked me to come to Jyväskylä (Toyota base in Finland) where we had a meeting with several Japanese officials of Toyota Gazoo Racing.