Citroen Keen To Tempt Ogier Back To French Team

Team bosses looking ahead to a future without Meeke

- David Evans

Citroen is ready to sit down and discuss a deal to bring Sebastien Ogier back to Paris to replace Kris Meeke in the C3 WRC next season.

Craig Breen and Mads Ostberg will represent the French firm at the next round in Sardinia, the Italian island event was always planned for Ostberg. Beyond round seven, Citroen has three weeks to decide who will drive its lead car at Rally Finland and potentially for the rest of the season. That won’t be Ogier, who is committed to his contract with the M-Sport Ford World Rally Team.

But Citroen team principal Pierre Budar said he would be interested to sit down and talk to the five-time champion about bringing him back for the first time since the Citroen-Ogier relationship fell apart at the end of 2011.

Budar told MN: “You can imagine in our situation we are going to consider all of the opportunities to have a new driver.

“If you tell me Ogier is on the market and Ogier can be interested by Citroen then, of course, I would be interested in Sebastien Ogier. That’s for sure. But we have to consider all the opportunities. We have to define our driver line-up for next year.”

Meeke’s departure could force Citroen into a significant U-turn where Ogier is concerned – PSA Group CEO Carlos Tavares told MN at the start of the season that the firm wasn’t thinking about bringing him back.