A new exploit for the Citroën Junior Team
Building on the the experience built up since the start of the season and a solid first day, the Citroën Junior Team has made solid progress on the Rally Finland today. Having set a fastest time on their first participation on this mythical round of the WRC, Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia made up three places in order to finish the second leg of the rally in sixth place. Holding ninth place, Conrad Rautenbach and Daniel Barritt are close to the points scoring places.

Under the rain, Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia carried out the first loop of three stages cautiously. « On the first passage we adopted a conservative rhythm and we just checked our notes. » Having found confidence on the drier stages, the reigning Junior Champion increased his pace on the second run. « We improved our times. I am feeling better and better in the car. The Citroen C4 WRC is very efficient on these roads.. »

On the final loop, Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia managed to reveal their potential by setting the quickest time in Kavala (SS18) an exceptional performance for their first participation in Rally Finland at the wheel of the Citroen C4 WRC. Having got past Mads Ostberg, the Equipe de France FFSA driver got close to Matti Rantanen’s fifth place. « We stuck to our plan. I am very pleased with our times, especially the final three stages with a fastest time amongst them. You need a special degree of confidence to go well here. We took our time to learn it and this paid off. We will try and keep the situation tomorrow. We only have 17 seconds to fifth place but we are not going to take every risk going.. »

Conrad Rautenbach and Daniel Barritt continue to make progress in the classification. Having got into the top 10 today they finished ninth on the evening. « It was a long day. We really enjoyed ourselves on these roads. We were slightly slowed by an engine problem and I did not have a good feeling with the car. Tomorrow, we will tackle again some nice stages with some exciting crests. »

The progress of Evgeny Novikov and Dale Moscatt was cut short in SS14. After three special stages in which they got to grips with the specific terrain, the crew in the yellow C4 WRC went off in Leustu 2 : « We were going at a quick pace and our first splits were good. We had two big moments : one jump on which we landed with the back bumper touching the ground and then a high-speed encounter with the trees. That was it. » While the crew was unharmed their C4 WRC was too badly damaged to continue.

« Sébastien had a great day », concluded Benoit Nogier, Citroën Junior Team Manager. « He showed all his intelligence by increasing his speed as the stages went on. He ended the day with a quickest time while the leaders were still fighting. Conrad has continued the consistency he demonstrated since day one. Now he gets closer to the points thanks to his incessant progress. By contrast, we are all disappointed by Evgeny ending his rally like this. »

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