Neuville happy to be overlooked for Citroen seat

Thierry Neuville says he’s glad he’s not under consideration for the second factory Citroen drive in next year’s FIA World Rally Championship because he’s not ready.

Neuville, 24, has contested all 13 rounds of this year’s WRC on the back of six appearances on the global series. Although he has suffered a few accidents along the way, he has impressed with his speed in a works-supported Citroen DS3 WRC despite a dearth of knowledge of the events.

With the seat alongside Mikko Hirvonen in 2013 between Mads Ostberg and Dani Sordo, Neuville wants another 12 months to continue learning before he’s ready to take the next step in his career.

"We have had a good season from our performance but we were sometimes unlucky, sometimes we made mistakes," said the Belgian talent. "We learned a lot this year, things you never imagined before because it never happened to me. Now we need one more year to get consistent. We are working hard on the programme, it"s looking good so far but I don’t know how many rounds yet."