By Ben @ Paddockeye.ie
Citroen Racing’s Craig Breen had another extremely strong result in the World Rally Championship this weekend. The WRC teams headed to Sweden for the only winter rally of the year.
Breen, driving the brand new Citroen C3 WRC for the first time this season made steady progress throughout the event and recovered from a spin early in the weekend to finish the race in fifth place overall.
Breen went into this weekend’s rally looking forward to the challenging conditions and speaking to Paddock Eye prior to the event last week stated:
I can’t see why not, the whole thing was a bit of a disaster in Monte but as like I said there were so many different factors that were out of our control so I think in the Sweden the weather is taking a bit of a turn in a good way so hopefully we’ll have conditions that we can work on and I think we will start to get a real reflection on everybody’s packages especially by the test and with all the effort the guys back at the factory have put in, I can’t see why our package won’t be one of the best so I am really looking forward to it.
That is exactly what happened. Breen’s fifth place this weekend gives Citroen Racing the perfect platform to build on heading to the next event in Mexico.
Breen was on the pace all weekend and benefited from a few mishaps ahead of him on the road notably, the rally leader, Hyundai Motorsport’s Thierry Neuville retiring from the event on Saturday night.
Breen who had been in a solid seventh place saw himself move up the order early on Saturday after his team mate Kris Meeke got stuck in a snow bank losing eight minutes as spectators worked to free the second C3 WRC.
The next rally in Mexico takes place from March 9-12.
