Citroën show who are the bosses!

The first leg of Rally Germany, run in the Mosell vineyards, consisted of two loops of three stages. With a few minutes to go to the start, thick clouds formed over the Triers service park reminding the teams of the uncertainty surrounding the weather. The Citroën Total World Rally Team crews guided by the forecast supplied by Météo France chose a mixture of tyres consisting of four soft and two hard Michelins.

For SS1, which was run in dry conditions, the DS3 WRCs put soft rubber on the right-hand side and hard tyres on the left. Thanks to this daring and original choice, Sébastien Ogier and Sébastien Loeb lost only a few tenths of a second to Latvala, who opted for four hard tyres. SS2, was completely soaked by a shower that fell just before the start. The DS3 WRCs on soft rubber opened up a gap over their rivals. Ogier set the quickest time and took the lead in the rally by 1.3s from Loeb. Hirvonen in third was already over 30s in arrears! The loop finished with a dry stage during which the Citroën drivers stayed on soft rubber. Loeb, who went pedal to the metal, set his first fastest time of the event and dislodged his team-mate from first place.

“I’m happy with the way we’ve started the rally. I feel good in the car but it really wasn’t easy to handle in SS1. I made a few mistakes. But we made the right choice and this loop has helped us make the break,” concluded Ogier.

The sun shone in the afternoon loop and this enabled the crews to do battle on a level playing field in terms of tyres. Ogier showed his improvement on tarmac with the best time in SS4, which brought him to within 9/10s of the leader. At the end of the leg the two Works Citroën DS3 WRCs arrived in the service park in the first two places over a minute in front of the third-placed car.

“It’s an ideal situation to tackle the rest of the rally, » summed up Olivier Quesnel, the Citroën Racing Team Principal.”We still have two long days in front of us and the weather may produce a few unexpected surprises. Our crews mustn’t let down their guard in order to transform this excellent first day’s result into another double.”