Citroën could make a big set-up change to its C3 World Rally Car ahead of Rally Finland next week after testing new front geometry, but will take a final decision after Craig Breen, Mads Østberg, and Khalid Al Qassimi complete their pre-event tests later this week.
The French team introduced new rear geometry at Rally Argentina earlier this season and now Østberg says that the latest work on the car’s front end could bring more pace.
"We are feeling positive about this,” the Norwegian said. “It is one of the big things we have been looking at for some time now and I have already tested with it in Portugal and Spain.
"The philosophy of the car is changing – we saw the team brought the new rear geometry for the car, but the front didn't follow. With this new set-up it would mean we could run the car quite a bit softer and still have good grip. For us, we are always fighting grip versus reaction, before when we wanted the car to react, we lost some of the grip."
Last year, Finland was a real low point for the team, with Breen its top finisher in fifth while Kris Meeke, who 12 months earlier had won there in the DS3, finished eighth. Now the team hopes for a better result in 2018.
"In Finland we will run the car stiffer than probably on any other rally, but still this would be really important,” Østberg added.
Breen will run the test car for just one day this week, having completed last weekend's Rally Estonia as part of his preparations for Finland In Estonia he took three fastest times and plenty of experience.
“It was a good weekend and we come away not only feeling very confident, but also with some good data in the bank,” said Breen. “We started well with a good set-up for Friday's shakedown and we gradually worked on that basic configuration to pick up pace as the rally progressed. I am very pleased with the work we achieved and I can't wait to start fine-tuning the result for Finland."
Meanwhile, Citroën boss Pierre Budar said Estonia was a success for his squad.
"Craig was generally around a tenth of a second per km off the times of Tänak, who will be one of our biggest threats in Finland,” said Budar. “So I think we can say it was successful for us."
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