Quesnel: Citroen stars to fight for Acropolis glory

Citroen Racing boss Olivier Quesnel has told Wrc.com that his two drivers will be allowed to fight it out for victory on the final day of the Acropolis Rally.

World champion Sebastien Loeb heads his understudy Sebastien Ogier by 2.2 seconds with five stages of the thrilling world championship qualifier in Greece remaining.

Ogier had topped the leaderboard until he dropped time on Saturday’s final night stage, blaming hanging dust clouds for his loss of pace. His delay completing the stage meant Loeb moved into the lead and, as a result, will be tasked with forging a clean line through the loose surface gravel on Sunday’s opening tests for the drivers running behind.

“They will be allowed to fight but they know they need to stay on the road,” said Quesnel. “If they go out of the road then for the drivers’ championship it is over for one of them. Everybody agrees with that, the only problem is that Loeb wanted Ogier to stay before him. He was not happy but this is the problem of the [running order]. I completely understood Loeb because from the first day he is driving hard and he knows everybody is trying to get him. He drove really first, maybe he is the fastest on this rally.”

Asked whether he had considered telling his drivers to hold station to give Loeb, the world championship leader, a more favourable road position for the final day, Quesnel said: “Both Sebs are number one. There is no number two. We spoke with both of them [before the stage] and everybody knew exactly what they wanted to do. At the end Loeb was a little bit frustrated because he would have wanted Ogier to stay first but Ogier did not have to.”