King of the Asphalt - 2008 Citroën C4 WRC.

Frenchmen had always been succesful with their rallying machines, such as the A110 and the 205T16, and Citroën was by no means the exception. After having proven their success in several Paris - Dakar rallyes, they decided to endeavour into the World Rally Car championship with their Xsara. Once the Xsara had ended it’s racing life, Citroën begun work in 2004, but the unveil was not done until 2006 because they hadn’t partaken in the previous season.

The car was finally unveiled in 2007, after the R&D for it took a halt for one and a half years due to the aforementioned problems.
This all-new racer was powered by a 2.0l (1998cc, if you like numbers), DOHC, turbocharged inline-four unit, codenamed XU7JP4.

This was good for 315hp and 420lbft (inb4 blaze it jokes) of torque, with a 158bhp output per liter. Unfortunately, the use of an active differential had been prohibited in 2006, so Citroën had to make do with an LSD. The use of electronic driver assists was also limited (but not prohibited), and, still with all of those things against them (and the whole ‘grid’, if you can call it that).

Power was sent through all four wheels via a six-speed sequential transmission developed by X-Trac, together with a triple disc clutch and (As previously mentioned) an LSD. The interior was stripped down to the bare essentials (as with almost any racecar) and sadly did not have a static centre steering wheel, and did receive critics from test drivers Philippe Bugalski (FRA) and Juuso Pykälistö (FIN) because the seats were mounted so low in the car to reduce the center of gravity, that it had actually reduced the vision of the drivers. Together with a long hood and low seats, visibility wasn’t very good, but they solved it and kept on.
The cars’ body was made of Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic (CFRP, for future reference), together with a steel chassis and roll cage. All of this helped to bring the car down to a total weight of 1,230kgs (2,712lbs)

Slotted discs and 6-piston calipers up front, together with 4-piston calipers and same kind of discs in the back were used in asphalt courses. For gravel courses, 4-piston calipers and slotted discs were used all around to bring the 4.27 meter long hatch to a stop. A compensator adjustable brake distributor together with a hydraulic handbrake round up the anchor package. For the suspension, McPherson struts with coil springs and Citroën/ Exe-TC dampers were used all around the car.

The C4 racing history was plagued with success, even since the first race. Citroën drivers Sébastien Loeb (FRA) and Dani Sordo (SPN) got a 1-2 victory in their debut season, at the 2007 Rallye De Montecarlo, and then Loeb continued to win the Mexican, Portuguese, Argentinean, German, Spanish, French and Irish rallies. Those victories also helped Loeb win the 4th title in a row, this being the first one of four he’d get with the C4.

On this first season though, not everything was as smooth as butter, because although Mr. Loeb indeed won that season’s championship, the Constructors’ championship slipped out of Citroën’s hands. Citroën lost the championship to Ford, thanks to Grönholm’s victories and Sordo’s DNFs in Finland and Germany.

Citroën kept on winning for the next season, in which they decided to repeat their driver formula (Sebastien Loeb/Daniel Elena and Dani Sordo/Marc Martí). This play was a very good one indeed, with Frenchman Loeb dominating the season, winning 11 races out of the 15 that composed the season. Loeb underperformed in Turkey and Japan, finishing third in both rallies, and having to abandon in the Swedish rally and not scoring points in the Jordanian rally. Sordo, on the other hand, managed to get six podium finishes and ended the championship in the third position. 2008 was also the first season to see the participation of privateer C4 racecars, including Sebastien Ogier’s one. Those results meant that Citroën had won both the Drivers’ Championship and the Constructors’ Championship.

For the 2009 season, things were still going very good for the French brand’s team. This season was no different, with legend Loeb scoring seven victories throughout the season, and, this way, taking the Drivers’ Championship. The 2009 season was very important for Citroën too, as they saw the conformation and participation of another (factory backed) team, the Citroën Junior Team.
This new team saw the participation of drivers Evgeny Novikov (RUS), Chris Atkinson (AUS), Petter Solberg (NOR), Aaron Burkart (GER), Conrad Rautenbach (ZIM) and Sebastien Ogier. All of them raced, but only Rautenbach and Ogier participated in every race of the season. A notable result of the Junior Team was Ogier’s impressive second place in Greece’s rally.

2010 was the C4’s last season, but that never meant that it’d be a bad one. Citroën secured the fourth Drivers’ Championship and the Manufacturers’ Championship in a row, and also added ten more victories to their record, with Frenchmen Ogier winning both Portuguese and Japanese Rallies, giving him his first victories in the WRC.
Loeb was still the star of the show though, taking eight victories and the drivers championship, again. Privateer racer Petter Solberg ran a C4 WRC for his team and secured 8 podiums, finishing third in the Drivers’ Championship, behind Loeb (1st) and Ogier (2nd).
After this season, the C4 was replaced by the new DS3 WRC, to advertise the rebirth of the “DS” line.

The C4 WRC was a machine built to continue with Citroën’s legacy of racers that were successful in the dirt, following in the footsteps of the ZX Rallye Raid and the Xsara WRC. It clearly did not disappoint, having won all of the races on asphalt roads it participated in. In total, it gave Citroën 35 victories, 4 Drivers’ Championships, 4 Constructors’ Championships and 4 Co-Drivers’ Championships. 4 seasons, 12 championships, about as successful as it gets.

Until then, Sir GT-R, out.

#blogpost