Citroën Racing will not organize a promotion formula in France in 2017

While Citroën's competition department will refocus on WRC in 2017 with the C3 which will be entrusted to Kris Meeke, Craig Breen and Stéphane Lefebvre, the chevron brand indicated this Friday thatshe suspended the organization of the promotion formula in France next year.

The Citroën Racing Trophy and Citroën Racing Trophy Junior will therefore not be renewed, the French Junior Rally Championship being contested with Ford Fiesta R2 Juniors within a competition managed by the FFSA Academy.

“The Racing Shop department will continue to market existing products, while providing advice and technical support to owners of DS 3 R1, R3, R3-MAX and R5. Likewise, the availability of spare parts for these models – as well as the different versions of C2 – will be ensured as until now. The winner of the Citroën Racing Trophy, who will be known at the end of the Rally du Var (November 24-27), will be rewarded with a program of six WRC-3 races in a DS 3 R3-MAX. states the press release.

If the current models will therefore always receive support from Citroën, the French brand does not intend to abandon one of the pillars of its strategy by already looking towards the future and the 2018 season since new models intended for customer competition and based on the New Citroën C3 are under study, and could appear during 2018.

Yves Matton, boss of Citroën Racing, also recalls that this interruption is not “a first in the history of Citroën” and that continuity will be ensured with commercial and technical support to the brand's customers.

“With its return to the WRC, Citroën Racing is preparing to experience one of the most exciting challenges in its history, admits Matton. At the same time, we are reaching the end of a cycle for the Citroën Racing Trophy and Citroën Racing Trophy Junior promotion formulas. We have therefore decided not to renew this activity in 2017, to be able to concentrate all our energy on our main objective.

In addition to the development of new customer competition products based on the New Citroën C3, we will consider new promotional formulas to detect future World Champions. »