Matton: victory number 10 not guaranteed

Citroen Total World Rally chief Yves Matton is not taking the make’s unbroken run of success on ADAC Rallye Deutschland for granted as the start of the FIA World Rally Championship counter approaches.

The French manufacturer has never been beaten on the Trier-based event since its elevation to WRC status in 2002 with Sebastien Loeb claiming eight wins and former works driver Sebastien Ogier taking a solitary success in 2011.

Matton, whose factory drivers Sebastien Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen are currently first and second in the world championship standings, said: “This is motorsport and a lot of technical things can go wrong and the drivers can also do a mistake. But for sure if I see the statistics from last year and before I will be disappointed if we will not win. Certainly it will be difficult to go back to France if we are not winning.”

Citroen conducted its pre-event test for Germany in early July but Matton said that would not put his team at a disadvantage compared to Ford, which tested in the country earlier this month.

“I don’t see it’s a real disadvantage on this type of surface,” he said. “Normally in the beginning of July or in August the weather conditions here are approximately the same. We did also some test in August with Thierry [Neuville] so we have some information. The test we did at the beginning of July was done in the proper way.”