Citroën Junior Team

Citroën Junior Team
Full name	Citroën Junior Team
Base	Versailles, France
Team principal(s)	Benoit Nogier
Chassis	Citroën DS3 WRC
Tyres	Michelin
World Rally Championship history
Debut	2009 Rally Ireland
Last event	2012 Rally Catalunya
Manufacturers' Championships	0
Drivers' Championships	0
Rally wins	3

The Citroën Junior Team was a World Rally Championship team that competed in the 2009, 2010 and 2012 seasons. It was established as a second team for the Citroën brand and was presented as a vehicle to develop young talent.

The team was also the flagship WRC team for Citroën Racing's customer racing department, Citroën Racing Technologies (CRT), which was in existence between 2007 and 2012. As with all of CRT's customer privateers and team, the Citroën Junior Team was run on events by third-party preparation firm PH Sport.^[1]^[2]^[3]

History

Background

PH Sport and Citroën Sport Technologies^[a] ran semi-privateer Citroën C4 WRCs for Conrad Rautenbach and Urmo Aava during the 2008 World Rally Championship season.^[4]

2009

Conrad Rautenbach driving Citroën C4 WRC at the 2009 Rally Finland.

Kimi Räikkönen at the 2010 Rally Finland.

The Citroën Junior Team was formed in 2009 following the withdrawal of manufacturers Subaru and Suzuki. It ran Citroën C4s for Russian Evgeny Novikov, Zimbabwean Conrad Rautenbach and Junior World Rally Championship champion Sébastien Ogier. It ran former Subaru driver Chris Atkinson rather than Novikov on the season-opening Rally Ireland, although despite a good performance, the Australian did not feature in the team again. Petter Solberg was nominated to score manufacturer points for the team at Rally GB.^[5] Solberg finished fourth there, with another driver of Citroën Junior Team Aaron Burkart finishing 12th in his first WRC rally with WRC car.

2010

On 4 December 2009, it was announced that 2007 Formula One World Champion Kimi Räikkönen would drive for the Junior Team for his switch to rallying.^[6] Räikkönen's co-driver would be Kaj Lindström who had partnered multiple world champion Tommi Mäkinen in the past, while Sébastien Ogier and co-driver Julien Ingrassia were in a second car for the Junior Team.

Räikkönen and Lindström contested 12 out of the 13 rounds in the 2010 WRC season, missing only the Rally of New Zealand. They did not start at 2010 Rally Catalunya because of a crash at the pre-event shakedown.

Sébastien Ogier claimed Citroën Junior Team's best result, winning at 2010 Rally de Portugal. Because of his strong finishes he was promoted to Citroën World Rally Team for gravel rallies (Finland, Japan, Wales) while Dani Sordo switched to Citroën Junior Team for those rallies. The best result for Kimi Räikkönen was 5th place at 2010 Rally of Turkey.

2011

The 'Junior Team' banner was dropped for 2011 as Ogier was promoted to the Citroën World Rally Team. A change in WRC regulations allowed customers of Citroën Racing Technologies to each enter in their own teams with just one car. Petter Solberg, Peter van Merksteijn Jr. and Kimi Räikkönen entered this way in 2011, still using cars from CRT and operated on event by PH Sport.

2012

The Junior Team name was revived as Thierry Neuville entered the WRC in a one-car team after a successful two-year campaign in IRC with Peugeot 207 S2000 run by Peugeot BelLux. His best result was fourth at the Rally de France Alsace and he finished the season in seventh position.

2013–

The Citroën Racing Technologies name disappeared after 2012 as Citroën Racing's customer offerings focused on its new DS3 Regional Rally Car, R5, R3T and R1 cars rather than World Rally Cars. No privateer teams contested the WRC manufacturers' championship again in Citroën World Rally Cars, perhaps arguably with the exception of the Abu Dhabi Total World Rally Team in 2016, which was the existing Citroën World Rally Team without an official manufacturer entry, entered again through PH Sport.

WRC Results

Year	Entrant	Car	No	Driver	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	WDC	Points	TC	Points
2008	World Rally Team Estonia	Citroën C4 WRC	15	Urmo Aava	MON	SWE 18	MEX	ARG	JOR Ret	ITA 8	GRE 4	TUR Ret	FIN 15	GER 8	NZL 5	ESP Ret	FRA 7	JPN	GBR	11th	13	–	–
	Conrad Rautenbach	Citroën Xsara WRC	21	Conrad Rautenbach	MON Ret	SWE 16														15th	6
	Conrad Rautenbach	Citroën C4 WRC	16	Conrad Rautenbach			MEX 15	ARG 4	JOR 26	ITA 13	GRE 10	TUR 8	FIN 10	GER 13	NZL Ret	ESP Ret	FRA 14	JPN Ret	GBR 15	15th	6
	Equipe de France FFSA	Citroën C4 WRC	17	Sébastien Ogier	MON	SWE	MEX	ARG	JOR	ITA	GRE	TUR	FIN	GER	NZL	ESP	FRA	JPN	GBR 26	19th	1
2009	Citroën Junior Team	Citroën C4 WRC	7	Chris Atkinson	IRE 5	NOR	CYP	POR	ARG	ITA	GRE	POL	FIN	AUS	ESP	GBR				14th	4	4th	47
			7	Evgeny Novikov	IRE	NOR 11	CYP Ret	POR Ret	ARG	ITA 5	GRC 16	POL 9	FIN Ret	AUS	ESP Ret	GBR				13th	4
			8	Conrad Rautenbach	IRE 18	NOR Ret	CYP 6	POR Ret	ARG Ret	ITA 9	GRE 5	POL 8	FIN Ret	AUS Ret	ESP 11	GBR 8				10th	9
			11	Petter Solberg	IRE	NOR	CYP	POR	ARG	ITA	GRE	POL	FIN	AUS	ESP	GBR 4				5th	35
			12	Sébastien Ogier	IRE 6	NOR 10	CYP Ret	POR 17	ARG 7	ITA Ret	GRE 2	POL Ret	FIN 6	AUS 5	ESP 5	GBR Ret				8th	24
			16	Aaron Burkart	IRE	NOR	CYP	POR	ARG	ITA	GRE	POL	FIN	AUS	ESP	GBR 12				–	0
2010	Citroën Junior Team	Citroën C4 WRC	7	Sébastien Ogier	SWE 5	MEX 3	JOR 6	TUR 4	NZL 2	POR 1	BUL 4		GER 3		FRA 6	ESP 10				4th	167	3rd	217
			7	Dani Sordo								FIN 5		JPN 4			GBR 5			5th	150
			8	Kimi Räikkönen	SWE 29	MEX Ret	JOR 8	TUR 5	NZL	POR 10	BUL 11	FIN 25	GER 7	JPN Ret	FRA Ret	ESP DNS	GBR 8			10th	25
2012	Citroën Junior Team	Citroën DS3 WRC	23	Thierry Neuville	MON Ret	SWE 12	MEX 13	POR 8	ARG 5	GRE 6	NZL	FIN 16	GER 12	GBR 7	FRA 4	ITA	ESP 12			7th	53	5th	72