Citroën cars could remain on the WTCC grid after 2016

Although Citroën are slimming down to a two car factory effort next season, the plans are for there still to be five cars on the grid in 2016 with Sébastien Loeb Racing running three cars, while Citroën Racing team principal Yves Matton says the door is open for SLR to expand and run up to five cars from 2017 when the manufacturer officially leaves the championship.

Citroën will slim down to just two works cars for José María López and Yvan Muller next year, with Sébastien Loeb focussing his efforts on the FIA Cross Country World Cup, with Matton explaining it was the development of their 2017 World Rally Championship challenger which was the key factor.

“It’s a difficult target to be again champions (in WRC),” said Matton to TouringCarTimes. “We have to produce a new car, and at the same time we want to keep our titles in touring cars. With the same amount of people and constraints you have to make some decisions to try and achieve new targets.

“The first decision was to not be part of the World Rally Championship in 2016. After that the situation in touring cars is also different since we started. Now we know the discipline and we will also have some privateers who will run our cars and will win us points for the manufacturers’ championship. We think with two drivers and with some privateers we’ll be in a position that we’ll be able to fight for the titles.”

Sébastien Loeb Racing ran two cars in 2015, one as a satellite operation of Citroën Racing for Ma Qing Hua, and the other for Moroccan privateer Mehdi Bennani. In 2016, the team will expand to three cars, with Bennani remaining with Gregoire Demoustier joining the team, with the third driver yet to be confirmed.

“2016 will be the first step with three cars run by his team,” added Matton. “During the first part of next season we’ll see if it works, after that it’ll be a good time to speak with Sébastien about if there is a possibility with some partners to run five cars in 2017. For sure there will not be manufacturer involvement, but the cars are there and we can try to find a solution for the cars to stay on the grid in the interests of the promoter, SLR and Citroën.

Matton rules out the possibility of a large scale privateer programme, and aims to just have one team running their C-Elysée WTCCs, but that could be another team if SLR choose to move elsewhere in 2017.

“The way we work in the World Rally Championship, we only have one team who is able to sell our cars and parts as we’re not organised within the factory to have a commercial division,” explained Matton. “So my hope is to do everything with SLR, but we’ll also see if SLR will be organised to support this, and if not we can look for a second team, but for sure my hope is to only (support) one team.”