Evgeny Novikov and Denis Giraudet opened their score by finishing seventh in their first outing at the wheel of a Citroën DS3 WRC in a round of the World Rally Championship. Despite being delayed by a puncture Peter Van Merksteijn and Erwin Monbaerts showed how much they have improved on tarmac, and also set the seventh-quickest time in the longest stage of the season.
While the second-last round of the year got off to a great start for Petter Solberg who set the fastest time in the shakedown, his race came to an abrupt end as the Norwegian went out in the first stage. “There was so much dust; I’ve rarely seen such conditions,” said the 2003 world champion. “In a corner where we couldn’t see anything, we clipped a barrier and tore off a wheel. We couldn’t continue. Rather than rejoining in the SuperRally without any hope of scoring a good result, we decided to call it quits and do everything possible to guarantee our participation in Rally Great Britain.”
Kimi Räikkönen also had a pretty hectic first day when a fuel leak caused a fire. The Finn had to retire before tackling the tarmac section of the rally, so all the efforts of Citroën Racing Technologies were concentrated on Evgeny Novikov and Peter Van Merksteijn.
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