PIERRE BUDAR

Director of Citroen Racing

What are the targets for 2018 now?

“The target will be reconsidered when we know what is the line-up for the drivers in the next rallies. We have to see what kind of opportunity we will get for these rallies [in terms of drivers], so for the time being I can’t say much about this.”

There’s been criticism about the communication you made announcing this news.what are your thoughts on this?

“I think this is difficult to avoid when you have this kind of communication for such a difficult decision or news, it’s difficult to have everybody happy with a statement like this one. Of course, we have tried to do something clear. It’s difficult to give too many details when you make it by a statement like this. Once again, I don’t want misunderstanding about how Kris and Paul has been appreciated by everybody in the team and we have in mind that he was the last driver able to have Citroen winning a rally and for sure, nobody will forget this. But we have also to manage a team in the WRC and we have been appointed to direct the team to get some victories, to win some championships and we have to do what’s best for the team.”

Was Paul’s mistake in Corsica a contributing factor?

“As far as I know, this was one of the first mistakes for Paul. We have decided at the time not to blame him – he was not to blame for that. It’s possible to make some mistake, we don’t deny this. It’s not the same to have one mistake for your career as to have several mistakes repeated.”

Kris developed this car, how much of Citroen’s situation is his fault?

“I don’t think we can have this in mind. The performance of the car, let’s have a look at the situation – everybody agrees to say the car is performing quite well compared with the others. When you have Sebastien Loeb in the car in Corsica and Mexico he is able to do a very good time straight away, so if the car was really bad you couldn’t expect this. I don’t think Kris made a bad development with the car.”

This is the end of Citroen and Kris Meeke?

“Yes, I think we cannot tell today – after saying yesterday we will stop with him – we have to be realistic. It was, as you can imagine, a difficult decision and I will not say one day after this decision: ‘We will see next year…’ No. I cannot say this.”