Citroen has apologised to Dani Sordo for an administrative error that has cost the Spaniard a five-minute time penalty before the start of Wales Rally GB.
Rally Stewards applied the penalty today, after it was discovered that Sordo’s DS3 world rally car was built on the Citroen Total Abu Dhabi team’s ninth chassis of the season - when regulations limit the number to eight.
Citroen Racing director Yves Matton said the team had unintentionally built Sordo’s car for the final round of the championship on a chassis allocated to its second-tier Abu Dhabi Citroen Team.
“First of all I’m very sorry for Dani,” Matton told wrc.com. “We made a mistake in the nominations of the chassis. We used one of our chassis from the second team in the first team, and that counted as a ninth chassis.”
Back in service after the pre-event qualifying session, Sordo remained philosophical about the penalty.
“There was some confusion with the chassis numbers for the rally. It’s a small mistake, it’s cost us five minutes, but this is life, no?” he shrugged. “Everybody is human, and mistakes happen. Sometimes I make a mistake and other times the engineers or the people from the team do.
“I’m very disappointed but okay, we have nothing to gain now in the manufacturers’ and the drivers’ championships. All we can do is try to do the rally without thinking about it and try to have a good experience in the stages. The time at the end will be five minutes more - but that’s how it is.”