Tirabassi is also confident and wants to score as many points as humanly possible: "We did some testing [in July for Germany] on a stage with quite a lot of junctions in the vineyards and that enabled us to work on the brakes. I think we've found a nicely balanced set-up," he noted. "The C2 is perfect and there is no area that gives me any cause for concern. On the car front, I think we are about as ready as we can be. My objective therefore is to score as many points as possible, but above all I want to see all the Citroen’s finish up front. Five of the current top-six in the JWRC chose to skip Germany and, if all goes well, we should be able to put that to good effect to get back in the fight for the title."
The other drivers in C2’s will be rookies Julien Pressac and Aaron Burkart, the latter especially keen to do well on what is his home event: “Currently I only hope that I’m not over motivated and will get through the first special stage. If so, then a lot is possible,” said the German. “We proved during the last two runs in the Junior WRC that we can hold our on in the scoring ranks. If everything goes perfect we plan to fight for a place on the podium in the Junior WRC.”
Citroen’s main opposition is likely to come from the five Renault Clio runners, with
Conrad Rautenbach, Bernd Casier, Luca Betti, Faith Kara and Kalle Pinomaki all determined to make the C2 runners work for their points.
Suzuki will also be in action, Pavel Valousek in the sole Swift, while Michal Kosciuszko makes do with the Ignis.
The only other runner will be Barry Clark, who will again use the Ford Fiesta and who will be eligible to score points in the JWRC and in the Fiesta SportingTrophy International. Clark will be well up to speed, fresh from a twelfth place finish overall on the Rally Isle of Man, where he was competing in the MSA British Rally Championship just last weekend.
"I’ve just done Rally Isle of Man so I haven’t really had time to even think about Germany, but we’ll have some good tarmac preparation. It looks like an interesting event and it should be a real challenge. We set quickest times last time out in the Fiesta SportingTrophy so it would be good to do that again on a different surface," he noted.
Other significant entries:
Over 70 crews have entered the Rallye Deutschland, with 25 WRC cars set to start.
Kronos
Citroen will again enter an additional car, however this time it will be driven by Xavier Pons, who has been demoted to the third entry and who will now only be eligible to score manufacturers’ points.
