CITROËN
|
 9th July 2000
CITROËN PREPARES FOR THE WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIPCitroën's World Rally Championship plans have moved a step forward with the successful completion of the first loose surface tests on the stunning Citroën Xsara T4 with one of the world's leading gravel experts, Swede Thomas Radstrom, behind the wheel. While Citroën Sport has yet to confirm the driver line-up for the Xsara T4, the French car maker will not rule out Radstrom as a member of the team. Other possibilities include French Champion, Philippe Bugalski, Spanish Champion Jesus Puras and Patrick Magaud.
"I must say for a very, very young rally car it feels very good. It's very nice to drive," Radstrom said after the test. "We were working quite a lot on the suspension. The test stage was quite rough; it was on the same place Citroën normally test for rally-raids, no big stones like Greece, but big holes. You never know before you compete against other cars, but the first impression feels very good. I think the car is a bit smaller than the Focus, which means the handling and that stuff is a bit easier."
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The tests took place near Ales in southern France and Radstrom, a
former works driver for Toyota and Ford, believes that the Citroën Xsara
T4 prototype is well on the way to being a competitive proposition after
covering a World Championship stage distance under mock world rally conditions
in the Citroën over three days near Ales in the South of
France.
In France
the Citroën Xsara, meanwhile, remains unbeaten, with Bugalski sweeping to
his fourth successive French Championship win this year on the Limousin Rally,
in which he vanquished Simon Jean-Joseph's Subaru Impreza WRX by 57.8
seconds.
