Citroën Junior Team

Citroën Junior Team

Full name	Citroën Junior Team
Base	Versailles, France
Team principal(s)	Benoit Nogier
Drivers	Sébastien Ogier Kimi Räikkönen Dani Sordo
Co-drivers	Julien Ingrassia Kaj Lindström Diego Vallejo
Chassis	Citroën C4
Tyres	Pirelli
World Rally Championship career
Debut	2009
Constructors' Championships	0
Drivers' Championships	0
Rally wins	1

The Citroën Junior Team was a World Rally Championship team, which competed in the 2009 and 2010 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.

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.^[1]

2009

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

Kimi Räikkönen at the 2010 Rally Finland.

The Citroën Junior Team 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.^[2] 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.^[3] 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.

Future

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.

WRC Results

Year	Car	No	Driver	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	WDC	Points	TC	Points
2009	Citroën C4 WRC	7	Chris Atkinson	IRE 5	NOR	CYP	POR	ARG	ITA	GRE	POL	FIN	AUS	ESP	GBR		14th	4	4th	47
			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 C4 WRC	7	Sébastien Ogier	SWE 5	MEX 3	JOR 6	TUR 4	NZL 2	POR 1	BUL 4		DEU 3		FRA 6	ESP 10		4th	167	3rd	217
			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	DEU 7	JPN Ret	FRA Ret	ESP DNS	GBR 8	10th	25

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

References

1. ^ http://www.crash.net/world+rally/team_profile/31/citroen_junior_team.html
2. ^ "Solberg joins Citroen's Junior squad for Rally GB". wrc.com. WRC. 21 September 2009. http://wrc.com/jsp/index.jsp?lnk=101&id=6048&desc=Solberg. Retrieved 31 January 2010. 
3. ^ Kimi Raikkonen signs with Citröen junior rally team AUSmotive.com, 4 December 2009