Citroën Junior Team

Citroën Junior Team
World Rally Championship career
Full name	Citroën Junior Team
Base	Versailles, France
Team principal(s)	Benoit Nogier
Drivers	Thierry Neuville
Co-drivers	Nicholas Gilsoul
Chassis	Citroën DS3 WRC
Tyres	Michelin
Debut	2009
Constructors' Championships	0
Drivers' Championships	0
Rally wins	1

The Citroën Junior Team is a World Rally Championship team, which competed in the 2009-2010 and 2012 seasons. It was set up and run as Citroën's secondary team in the World Rally Championship, pitched against the existing Stobart Ford World Rally Team.

The team was run by French preparation firm PH Sport along with Citroën Racing Technologies. It was revived in 2012.^[1]

History

Background

PH Sport and Citroën Sport Technologies ran semi-privateer Citroën C4 WRCs for Conrad Rautenbach and Urmo Aava during the 2008 World Rally Championship season.^[2]

2009

Conrad Rautenbach driving Citroën C4 WRC at the 2009 Rally Finland.

Kimi Räikkönen at the 2010 Rally Finland.

The Citroën Junior Team was formed in 2009 following the withdrawal of manufacturers Subaru and Suzuki. It ran Citroën C4s for Russian Evgeny Novikov, Zimbabwean Conrad Rautenbach and Junior World Rally Championship champion Sébastien Ogier. It ran former Subaru driver Chris Atkinson rather than Novikov on the season-opening Rally Ireland, although despite a good performance, the Australian did not feature in the team again. Petter Solberg was nominated to score manufacturer points for the team at Rally GB.^[3] Solberg finished fourth there, with another driver of Citroën Junior Team Aaron Burkart finishing 12th in his first WRC rally with WRC car.

2010

On 4 December 2009, it was announced that 2007 Formula One World Champion Kimi Räikkönen would drive for the Citroën Junior Team for his switch to rallying.^[4] Räikkönen's co-driver would be Kaj Lindström who had partnered multiple world champion Tommi Mäkinen in the past, while Sébastien Ogier and co-driver Julien Ingrassia were in a second car for the Junior Team.

Räikkönen and Lindström contested 12 out of the 13 rounds in the 2010 WRC season, missing only the Rally of New Zealand. They did not start at 2010 Rally Catalunya because of a crash at the pre-event shakedown.

Sébastien Ogier claimed Citroën Junior Team's best result, winning at 2010 Rally de Portugal. Because of his strong finishes he was promoted to Citroën World Rally Team for gravel rallies (Finland, Japan, Wales) while Dani Sordo switched to Citroën Junior Team for those rallies. The best result for Kimi Räikkönen was 5th place at 2010 Rally of Turkey.

2011

The 'Junior Team' banner has been dropped for 2011, Citroen Racing Technologies instead focussing the brand's customer efforts on Petter Solberg, Peter van Merksteijn Jr. and Kimi Räikkönen's privateer campaigns.

2012

Thierry Neuville entered the WRC after a successful two-year campaign in IRC with Peugeot 207 S2000 run by Peugeot BelLux. He won famous Rallye San Remo and Tour de Corse in 2011 season. Thierry did not compete in selected rallies and Citroën Junior Team did not compete in the manufacturers championship.

2013

The team did not compete as WRC team in the 2013 season. Instead PH-Sport supported former Formula 1 driver Robert Kubica in the European Rally Championship and World Rally Championship-2 campaigns driving Citroën DS3 RRC, which is prepeared by the team.

2014

Stephane Lefebvre won the WRC2 championship in 2014 and was rewarded with a number of selected outings in the WRC team in 2015 and 2016

2016

With Citroën's decision to take a sabbatical as works team in preperations for 2017 PH-Sport took over as the manufacturer's de-facto leading team. Competing under the Abu Dhabi Total World Rally Team the team will compete in selected events with Kris Meeke as their leading driver, while at some events the other cars will be shared between Stéphane Lefebvre, Craig Breen and Khalid Al-Qassimi. The team however is not registered as a manufacturer team and therefore the drivers are ineligible to score manufacturer points.

WRC Results

Year	Entrant	Car	No	Driver	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	WDC	Points	TC	Points
2008	World Rally Team Estonia	Citroën C4 WRC	15	Urmo Aava	MON	SWE 18	MEX	ARG	JOR Ret	ITA 8	GRE 4	TUR Ret	FIN 15	GER 8	NZL 5	ESP Ret	FRA 7	JPN	GBR	11th	13	-	-
	Conrad Rautenbach	Citroën Xsara WRC	21	Conrad Rautenbach	MON Ret	SWE 16														15th	6
	Conrad Rautenbach	Citroën C4 WRC	16	Conrad Rautenbach			MEX 15	ARG 4	JOR 26	ITA 13	GRE 10	TUR 8	FIN 10	GER 13	NZL Ret	ESP Ret	FRA 14	JPN Ret	GBR 15	15th	6
	Equipe de France FFSA	Citroën C4 WRC	17	Sébastien Ogier	MON	SWE	MEX	ARG	JOR	ITA	GRE	TUR	FIN	GER	NZL	ESP	FRA	JPN	GBR 26	19th	1
2009	Citroën Junior Team	Citroën C4 WRC	7	Chris Atkinson	IRE 5	NOR	CYP	POR	ARG	ITA	GRE	POL	FIN	AUS	ESP	GBR				14th	4	4th	47
			7	Evgeny Novikov	IRE	NOR 11	CYP Ret	POR Ret	ARG	ITA 5	GRC 16	POL 9	FIN Ret	AUS	ESP Ret	GBR				13th	4
			8	Conrad Rautenbach	IRE 18	NOR Ret	CYP 6	POR Ret	ARG Ret	ITA 9	GRE 5	POL 8	FIN Ret	AUS Ret	ESP 11	GBR 8				10th	9
			11	Petter Solberg	IRE	NOR	CYP	POR	ARG	ITA	GRE	POL	FIN	AUS	ESP	GBR 4				5th	35
			12	Sébastien Ogier	IRE 6	NOR 10	CYP Ret	POR 17	ARG 7	ITA Ret	GRE 2	POL Ret	FIN 6	AUS 5	ESP 5	GBR Ret				8th	24
			16	Aaron Burkart	IRE	NOR	CYP	POR	ARG	ITA	GRE	POL	FIN	AUS	ESP	GBR 12				-	0
2010	Citroën Junior Team	Citroën C4 WRC	7	Sébastien Ogier	SWE 5	MEX 3	JOR 6	TUR 4	NZL 2	POR 1	BUL 4		GER 3		FRA 6	ESP 10				4th	167	3rd	217
			7	Dani Sordo								FIN 5		JPN 4			GBR 5			5th	150
			8	Kimi Räikkönen	SWE 29	MEX Ret	JOR 8	TUR 5	NZL	POR 10	BUL 11	FIN 25	GER 7	JPN Ret	FRA Ret	ESP DNS	GBR 8			10th	25
2012	Citroën Junior Team	Citroën DS3 WRC	23	Thierry Neuville	MON Ret	SWE 12	MEX 13	POR 8	ARG 5	GRE 6	NZL	FIN 16	GER 12	GBR 7	FRA 4	ITA	ESP 12			7th	53	5th	72
2013	Robert Kubica	Citroën DS3 RRC	74	Robert Kubica	MON	SWE	MEX	POR 19	ARG	GRE 11	ITA 9	FIN 9	GER 5	AUS	FRA 9	ESP 9	GBR			13th	18	-	-
2013

Gallery

Evgeny Novikov driving a Citroën Junior Team-run Citroën C4 WRC at the 2009 Cyprus Rally
Sébastien Ogier at the 2009 Rally Australia
Dani Sordo during his first rally for Citroën Junior Team at 2010 Rally Finland.
Kimi Räikkönen at the 2010 Rally Bulgaria
Robert Kubica driving Citroën DS3 RRC at the 2013 Rally Finland

References

↑ "80e RALLYE MONTE CARLO 2012" (PDF). rallye-magazin.de. 27 December 2011. Retrieved 29 December 2011.
↑ "Citroen Junior Team Team Profile | WRC". Crash.Net. 2008-12-24. Retrieved 2011-11-27.
↑ "Solberg joins Citroen's Junior squad for Rally GB". wrc.com. WRC. 21 September 2009. Retrieved 31 January 2010.
↑ Kimi Raikkonen signs with Citröen junior rally team AUSmotive.com, 4 December 2009

2012 World Rally Championship

Teams

Citroën WRT	Ford WRT	M-Sport Ford WRT	Qatar WRT

1 Loeb (Elena) 2 Hirvonen (Lehtinen)	3 Latvala (Anttila) 3 Sordo (del Barrio) 4 P. Solberg (Patterson)	5 Tänak (Sikk) 6 Novikov (Giraudet; Klinger; Minor) 6 Powell (Fennel) 8 Delecour (Savignoni) 8 Sołowow (Baran) 18 Kuipers (Buysmans)	7 Al-Attiyah (Bernacchini) 7 Neuville (Gilsoul) 7 Atkinson (Prévot) 7 Weijs, Jr. (Degandt)

Citroën Junior WRT	Brazil WRT	Adapta WRT	WRC Team Mini Portugal	Mini WRC Team

8 Neuville (Gilsoul)	9 Oliveira (Magalhaes) 9 Stohl (Minor)	10 Østberg (Andersson)	12 Araújo (Ramalho) 12 Atkinson (Prévot; MacNeall) 14 Nobre (Paula)	37 Sordo (del Barrio) 52 Campana (De Castelli)

Rallies

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