Citroën bosses are ready to start talks on a possible deal to bring Sébastien Ogier back to the French team, replacing the ousted Kris Meeke next season.
Craig Breen and Mads Østberg will represent Citroën in Sardinia. But beyond that round – the seventh in the 2018 WRC – the team then has three weeks to decide who will drive its lead car in Finland and potentially for the rest of the season. It won’t, of course, be Ogier, who is committed to M-Sport.
But the French outfit’s boss Pierre Budar said he would be interested in talking to the five-time world champion about him returning to the team for the first time since their relationship fell apart after 2011.
"You can imagine in our situation we are going to consider all of the opportunities to have a new driver," Budar said.
"If you tell me Ogier is on the market and Ogier can be interested by Citroën then, of course, I would be interested in Sébastien Ogier. That’s for sure. But we have to consider all the opportunities. We have to define our driver line-up for next year."
The end of Meeke may also force Citroën into a u-turn over Ogier. PSA Group CEO Carlos Tavares said at the start of 2018 that the firm wasn’t thinking about bringing him back.
Asked why Citroën hadn’t chased Ogier harder, Tavares said: "We believe we have a great driver called Kris Meeke. We love Mr Ogier, he’s a great champion who we respect a lot, but at the end of the day we make our decisions based on our strategy and we take the risk of being unpopular, but this is our strategy."
Now that strategy could be up for a big revision!
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