While Sébastien Loeb marched on to his 79th FIA World Rally Championship victory at the 2018 RallyRACC Catalunya – Rally de España, Citroën Total Abu Dhabi WRT team-mate Craig Breen had a tough time as he finished the rally down in ninth place.
Throughout the weekend the Irishman showed plenty of pace, especially on the gravel where he finished in the top three twice, but the switch to asphalt proved difficult as Breen took on the wet conditions in the Citroën C3 WRC.
“It was a difficult weekend for us, even though we had great speed at times, especially on the gravel.” said Breen, “But we lost a lot of time with our spins.
“We had nothing to play for today, but we enjoyed ourselves behind the wheel and that was the aim, so we can head for Australia in the best possible frame of mind.”
Pierre Budar, Citroën Racing Team Principal commented, “Craig showed genuine pace, providing further evidence of the competitiveness of our C3 WRC, but he was caught out a couple of times by the conditions, which were really difficult today.”
Team-mate Khalid Al Qassimi also struggled with the changeable conditions. “With the unpredictable weather, it wasn’t an easy race for me. We improved gradually on gravel, on tarmac, I wasn’t comfortable on the wet roads yesterday, but I had more confidence today.”
