Citroen WRT

[Fast Eddie WRC]

[dimviii]

[lluisva555]

Btw, I’ve read somewhere that the aero pack was developed by Oreca; any truth to it?

It seems so, AutoHEBDO.fr published it in the first lines of this article
https://www.autohebdo.fr/wrc/actuali...22-207301.html

[GigiGalliNo1]

"Citroen team principal Pierre Budar says delays in introducing hybrid power and a lack of return on investment in the World Rally Championship are contributing factors in the French firm quitting the series.
As outlined in Motorsport News last week, the French firm announceditsdecisiontoleave the WRC with immediate effect. Citroen’s communication was not exactly news, but pointing to Sebastien Ogier’s move to Toyota as a key reason for the departure certainly caught the attention (see page 12).

Citroen team principal Pierre Budar admitted to MN, however, there were other contributing factors regarding both the governance and promotion
of the WRC.

Asked if the series’ inability to embrace hybrid or alternative technologies quicker and the lack of presence in key markets like India and Russia was an issue for Citroen, Budar said: “For sure, it’s part of the problem. It’s very important for a brand like Citroen to make sure the situation [in the championship] is in line with its marketing expectation.

“What you have mentioned [hybrid and key markets] is not available today on WRC, so it gives WRC some lack compared with some other disciplines.
“When you see how much we need to push for the electrification of our brand and products and the marketing we need to push these cars on sales, it’s really difficult for a brand like Citroen not to focus on this. If the sporting discipline cannot help, it’s a real problem.

“We are not very strong when we go to the CEO to explain what we could do for the marketing of the brand when we cannot give any answers on these items – which are major items today for our marketing department. It’s part of the lack of our proposal.”

The WRC will deliver a hybrid solution for 2022 – a timeframe which FIA president Jean Todt has admitted is coming too late. The FIA insisted the teams had been part of the problem in slowing down that initial hybrid timetable, when they were unable to agree on the regulations and requirements.

FIA rally director Yves Matton told MN the remaining manufacturers are offering positive feedback on the current cars and the incoming 2022 regulations.
“The manufacturers request this kind of car we have for the moment,” said Matton.

“I have some quite positive feedback for 2022. It’s what they request from the car at the top level. We ask this question on all of our meetings: how do we reduce the cost involved? We are working together to keep this at the best level possible, while maintaining the technologies they request. The feedback is that we need this kind ofcarandweneedtodothebestwe can to keep them as cost-effective as possible, but this high-level of technology comes at the cost.”
Matton confirmed there would be no cost-saving on the horizon with 2022’s new regulations.

“We never say we will cut the cost,” said Matton. “What we have to do is work to maintain the cost to the same level – it’s not possible to bring hybrid and reduce the cost. The only way to reduce the cost would be to go to an R5-based championship, but it’s not what the manufacturers want for the top-level car.”

While they’re not acceptable at the highest level of the sport, R5 category cars remain at the heart of the FIA’s plans to develop manufacturer interest in the series.
“We have the target for 2023 to have 20 manufacturer-supported cars competing regularly in the world championship,” he added. “I don’t say 20 World Rally Cars, we know that’s impossible – the maximum we ever achieved was 16 or 17. But working with the WRC 2 and WRC 3 categories for next year, this is when we start to see more cars supported by the manufacturers and we will see more interest in this next year.

“We want a pro-am championship, but if we say we go to an R5 [World Rally Car] then the manufacturers will not follow. We need to have the balance between the top cars and some cars supported by the manufacturers from the lower categories.”

In an effort to combat Citroen’s perceived lack of potential world championship-winning drivers at the top of rallying, the FIA will reveal a new initiative helping the next generation of talent into the top tier.
“I cannot say too much about this,” said Matton, “but we will be [announcing] in December. We are working at the FIA on a talent selection programme – it will be a global programme concerning rallying. As a rally tool, it’s really useful. We are working really hard for this and again, to bri new talents, this is one of the reasons we make the changes to the WRC and WRC 3 layers Matton pointed out that sev drivers were capable of winn WRC rounds, but accepted th title contenders remained Ot Tanak, Thierry Neuville and Sebastien Ogier.

In his time with Citroen, Matton managed Citroen’s own junior team and he said the lack of such manufacture programmes was telling.

“Maybe in the last two or th years – since the launch of the new World Rally Cars – we mi something,” he said. “Maybe did not anticipate the gap betw R5 cars and World Rally Cars now the tools will be in place t have a quite proper pyramid. As well, we need to make sure the manufacturers really understand how important it to have junior teams. Citroen was one of the main provider [of drivers]. When you see [Kr Meeke, [Dani] Sordo, Ogier, Neuville, [Sebastien] Loeb, al these drivers were involved in Citroen junior programme an now some other manufacture can understand the value of t to the championship.”
WRC Promoter was contact regarding the costs involved i competing in the WRC and on Citroen’s departure, but it declined to comment.

[GigiGalliNo1]

Customer Citroens might appear in the 2020 WRC line-up, says Budar

Citroen’s 2020-specification C3 WRC – a car Pierre Budar is convinced is capable of lifting the world title – could still be seen next year.
Budar admitted the Versailles- based Citroen Racing operation was open to offers for the cars, which are developed and ready
to go with homologated updates for next season. The C3 WRC has undergone significant testing and development over the second half of the current year with progress targeted for next season.

PIERRE BUDAR

What went wrong for Citroen this season?

“We have faced the situation where we had lost a lot of development at the beginning
of the year. We have been rushed. It was difficult to recover the time we had [lost] at the beginning of the year because we had new drivers, new engineers and they had to understand the car. They had to learn how to work together and make development the priority. All of this needed time at the start of the season and, of course, this time give us some late advancement compared to the other teams and we have not been able to recover this.”

But you made good progress?

“I am quite sure we have made a lot of progress during the year and we had a lot of ongoing
Budar said: “I am quite convinced we would have started the season in a much better position than
this year.

“If we will see the car next season, I don’t know. The situation is still quite new, but if somebody is interested to rent or buy the cars, then I am open.”
Asked how confident he was the car could challenge for a title in 2020, he added: “I am quite convinced of
it. The progress we could see during the latest development tests. A better understanding and experience of
the team – [for the] race and data development that would have been ready for Monte Carlo, but this is the problem – from Seb’s point of view it would have been better to have it before and we can agree with this, but it cannot be possible. You cannot contract the time when you need to do some new development, some new tooling or new moulds, you cannot get the time back – especially with the homologation system, which is strict. With the homologation system you cannot make a mistake.”

When did you first realise Ogier was thinking about leaving?

“We had some first discussion with Seb after the summer. Of course, his concern was started after Germany.”
That was a difficult engineers on the car; they were quite new at the beginning of this season and now they have one more season [of experience]. Altogether
I am sure we would have been more in the fight next season.”

Those sentiments are shared by Esapekka Lappi. The Finn, who completed some of the development work along with Eric Camilli, said: “I think we could have done quite big steps. Obviously you saw the aero update which was working very well – for sure it would have helped a lot on the fast stages and fast rallies. event, especially given his statements to the press at the time...

“Yes. I confirm.”

When did you find out Citroen would not continue into theWRC’s hybrid era in 2022?

“We had several scenarios pondering for a while and it has been decided to relaunch Peugeot in World Endurance Championship. We have already DS involved in Formula E and we couldn’t get a third programme and have a good level of performance with three main programmes from the same organisation. So, when the decision has been made for Peugeot somewhere [in PSA], the decision has been made for Citroen not to be involved in the hybrid WRC in 2022.”
The change and the difference in time was quite big from the old aero. And then we had some performance- related updates: new engine, new geometry with some steering updates and some other things for the diffs. We were working on it.
“Like we saw when I got the diffs I wanted [this season] it all clicked on gravel. There was a lot of work on Tarmac to be done, but I was positive we had a big improvement for next year. Maybe they wouldn’t have answered all the challenges we face this year, but at least some of them.”

Was there ever a chance, in your opinion, Peugeot, for example, could run in WRC instead of WEC?

“[That] could have been a scenario also. But it has been decided to go for WEC because this programme was more online with expectation on Peugeot’s side. I don’t want to comment
on this choice by Peugeot – I’m not in a position to do so.”

[SubaruNorway]

Do we really need any more third world countries now like Russia and India?
There always seems to be some problem with them.

I really can't see why manufacturers would be interested in hybrid only running on road section, i can't see how they can find any real development to use in road from this solution, unlike F1 where you have both MGU-K and MGU-H

[cali]

Do we really need any more third world countries now like Russia and India?
There always seems to be some problem with them.

I really can't see why manufacturers would be interested in hybrid only running on road section, i can't see how they can find any real development to use in road from this solution, unlike F1 where you have both MGU-K and MGU-H

It's like 20 times bigger market than Norway, of course everyone is tempted to sell there in big volumes

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5010 using Tapatalk

[deephouse]

Hyundai are kings in Russia, Ford in America, the rest of the world is held By Toyota, 😂

[dimviii]

[AnttiL]

This is from last week's Motorsport News. Budar has said all along that the cars will be available to rent or to buy. However, this doesn't mean someone has the money for them.

Besides, I hate it when people post quotes like that without sources. That twitter account even copies my tweets sometimes (not retweeting) or copies my posts from this forum (like this post and this tweet)