Yohan Rossel holds WRC2 lead with the Citroën C3 Rally2

Despite a very tough weekend on the Rally Italia-Sardegna gravel stages, Yohan Rossel and Valentin Sarreaud held onto their lead in the WRC2 championship. On just his second outing of the season, talented Spanish youngster Jan Solans claimed an impressive second place in the RC2 class, in addition to finishing first in the WRC2 Junior category.

• Leaders of the WRC2 after winning in Portugal two weeks ago, Yohan Rossel and Valentin Sarreaud arrived in Sardinia with the main target of holding onto top spot in the standings. After initially making a fairly cautious start to avoid falling foul of the many difficulties presented by the Sardinian gravel, Yohan Rossel quickly moved among the front-runners. The C3 Rally2 driver put the class leader under pressure throughout day one. Unfortunately, Rossel went off the road on the final stage of the opening leg.

• Having rejoined under “Super Rally” rules after the PH Sport’s team did an incredible repair job on his car, Rossel then made full use of the reliability of his C3 Rally2 to sustain a good pace, enabling him to set three top-five times and make up an impressive eighteen places in the WRC2 class. Second quickest on the Power Stage, Rossel scored important points (2 pts), ensuring he ended the weekend at the top of the WRC2 overall championship standings.

• After being stopped in his tracks at Rally de Portugal, Jan Solans – alongside co-driver Rodrigo Sanjuan de Eusebio – made the most of the Italian round to confirm his impressive speed up against some of the WRC2’s leading names.

• The young Spaniard produced a controlled, mature performance, keeping out of trouble and avoiding any mistakes to end the opening leg in the top-three of the WRC2 class. Focussed on his strategy and full of confidence in the C3 Rally2, Solans maintained good pace to move into second place in class. Solans and Sanjuan de Eusebio then set some very good times to hold position until the end. In addition to finishing as runners-up in the WRC2, Solans also topped the WRC2 Junior category, a first-class performance.

• Widely regarded as one of the World Championship’s more daunting events given its tricky, demanding gravel roads, Rally Italia is unforgiving of even the slightest error, be it related to mechanical preparation or driving of the cars. Two aspects that were well managed by the #C3Rally2Family crews.

WHAT THEY SAID…

Yohan Rossel, leader of the WRC2 championship

“I made a minor, but costly error and I have to hold my hand up on that one. The PH Sport team worked incredibly hard to enable me to rejoin the rally for the second leg. We were able to confirm the strong pace that we have shown on all surfaces since the start of the season. All the development work done by Citroën Racing’s engineers on the C3 Rally2 is paying off, both in terms of speed and reliability. The two points scored on the Power Stage enabled me to increase my lead slightly in the WRC2 standings.”

Jan Solans, WRC2 runner-up and WRC2 Junior class winner at Rally Italia

“I'm delighted to secure second place in the WRC2. We can be proud of the job we did this weekend. We had a solid race, with no technical problems. I would like to thank and congratulate the entire Sports & You team, in partnership with Tagai Racing Technology, who prepared the C3 Rally2 to perfection. It’s great to drive a car like this in conditions like these.”

Didier Clément, Head of Customer Racing, Citroën Racing

“For his second start in the WRC2 this season, Jan Solans produced an extraordinary performance, managing to find the right balance between pushing and controlling his pace on these tough stages. Meanwhile, Yohan Rossel made a minor mistake, which is unlike him, but he was once again among the front-runners in terms of stage times in a championship where the standard is really high. Both C3 Rally2s competing in Italy confirmed their reliability and performance level, despite the demanding conditions with high temperatures and plenty of dust. That augurs well for the next few events.”

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