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 Versaillesbased 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.
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 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.
The change and the difference in time was quite big from the old aero. And then we had some performancerelated 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.”