CITROEN NEEDS A CONFIDENCE BOOST
Returning guru besse thinks 2017 problems can be fixed
Raising morale and confidence in the Citroen team is a bigger task than fixing the C3 WRC according to the French firm’s new technical director Christophe Besse.
Besse is back at Citroen for a second stint, having departed in 2007 to join Peugeot’s Le Mans programme. Currently working through the team’s C3 WRC, Besse told Motorsport News he was surprised at how low confidence was through the whole squad after a tough full-time WRC return in 2017.
Besse said: “We have to give back the confidence to everybody in the team, not just the drivers, but everybody. The team is not used to being at that [low] level. It’s difficult for everybody, they are not used to this. The problem is to try to make everybody work together, because we have a lot of very able people in the team – it’s not by mistake that the team has won 17 world rally titles.
“These people in the team are not used to being wrong at the start of the season. I think if we manage to turn this [confidence] around then we can make quite a good result before the end of the year – the car’s not as bad as the season has showed.”
On the subject of the C3 WRC, Besse is adamant there’s no single area letting it down, but he added that there would be no quick fix.
He added: “Looking at the car, you cannot say where is the problem, but discussing with the drivers, for me, we don’t have the big problem – it’s not like something is hidden in the car and when you find it, everything is clear. It’s not like this.
“It’s more a lot of things we have to improve, but this is the same in other teams – maybe it’s a bit more in our team. The only thing – and it’s part of my job – is to understand which order we need to do things. We need to make the priorities with the car. What are those priorities? I don’t know.”
Citroen was testing with Kris Meeke, Sebastien Loeb and Stephane Lefebvre in Spain last week, but Besse said the running was aimed at development rather than a specific pre-event set-up session for next week’s Salou-based WRC counter.
“We have roads which are a good mix in this test,” said Besse. “We could simulate roads from all around the world, which is really good. The focus of the test is the dampers, this is an area where we are working now. Ohlins is here with us, but we still have a lot of work to do – I hope we have passed half way, but maybe not so far. It’s a work in progress. The main problem is the inconsistency in the car. I’m sure this is not such a big technical problem, but it’s causing the drivers to lose confidence which makes it worse and worse.”
While Besse wasn’t part of the original design team on the C3, he feels the pursuit of ultimate pace might have been one of the issues.
“On our car we have something which is a bit more difficult to drive than the other cars,” he said. “That’s because, during the development we try to maximise the performance. Now we need to find a car more predictable and easier to drive.”
Citroen team principal Yves Matton has previously told MN he has targeted Mexico for his team’s return to world-beating speed and consistency. March 1 remains a major homologation target for Citroen to bring new parts to the C3 WRC, but Besse says time is already against them.
“We have to use [homologation] jokers,” he said. “We have two left for this year for the chassis and then five next year – but we can’t use all five early in the year. We have to save some. We have to find the priority and because this is homologation, you need to be certain about what you are doing – we need to test and evaluate the parts. If we miss the March 1 date, then there are a lot of gravel rallies coming after that, so we have to be ready.”