The Citroen Total Abu Dhabi World Rally Team had an up and down Rally Guanajuato Mexico, round three of the 2015 World Rally Championship, last weekend. The team achieved their first podium of the season thanks to Mads Ostberg while an early accident ruled Kris Meeke out of contention.
Norwegian Ostberg climbed up the order throughout the weekend and won three stages on his way to second overall. The Citroen driver finished the first day fifth but had a frightening start to day 2 when gearbox issues on stage 3 nearly put him off the road. This was the only major drama of the day and by the end of the leg Ostberg was up to third place.
On day three the Norwegian managed to take advantage of Latvala’s problems to move into second place as Volkswagen’s Andreas Mikkelsen started piling on the pressure. By the end of day 3 Ostberg held second place by a mere 4.5 seconds. On the final leg Ostberg was able to hold of his fellow Norwegian and take his best result of the season.
“I’m pleased to have shown that I was capable of maintaining a very strong pace throughout the rally.” said Ostberg, “Second place is an excellent result for the debut gravel outing of the 2015-spec DS 3 WRC. It will give us confidence for the rest of the season. We have to keep working and build on these foundations to improve further.”
For Kris Meeke it was a different story. After a promising start which say him win stage three the Northern Ireland driver went off on the following test putting him out of contention for the event. He carried on under Rally 2 rules and managed to score four manufacturers points for Citroen.
“I’m used to working a lot between rallies.” said Meeke, “I’m probably going to have to take a step back before heading for Argentina. I’ll do a reset to try and give my season a fresh start!”
Round three takes place in Argentina on April 23.
