Citroen Racing boss Yves Matton will finalise his team’s 2015 WRC driver line-up on Sunday, the final day of Wales Rally GB.
Matton revealed his plans today (Saturday) in an interview with WRC Live, and also explained how the news would be communicated.
“I will make my decision before tomorrow night and will start to communicate part of it next week,” he explained. “I will not say anything tomorrow. I am still talking with some different drivers. I am 97 per cent decided for both, but I have some things still to solve. Our plan is to announce one driver each week, over the next couple of weeks.”
Matton said his priority when choosing drivers for 2015 was their ability to deliver good results and points. He also revealed an opportunity for a third driver. “For sure Khalid Al-Qassimi will do four events with us next year, which gives us a window for a third car for some events,” he said.
Favourites for the full-time seats are current drivers Kris Meeke and Mads Ostberg. And Matton gave both positive assessments on their progress this year.
“We are happy with what the drivers and the team did, it is quite what we expected," he said.
“We knew Mads would need some time to adapt himself to the car because it’s different to what he drove in the past. In one way it went faster than we expected - he was doing good results in the first part of the season. The second part maybe was more difficult for him. He was expecting a lot. But what he showed today, and what he did in Spain, showed he is again back in the race and that the DS3 fits well to his new driving style.
“For Kris in the first part of the season we expected a difficult start. He did very well in Monte Carlo and after that he had to learn the rallies he had never done before. But in the second part, where we rated his performance, he went very well and he was very consistent. He nearly won in Germany and okay we are very happy with what he has done in the second half.”