Citroën Junior Team on the pace in Poland
The Citroën Junior Team has continued its progress on the Rally Poland. During the second day, Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia claimed fourth place overall thanks to some first rate performances. Conrad Rautenbach / Daniel Barritt and Evgeny Novikov / Dale Moscatt are in a position to score points for the Citroën Junior Team after a consistent performance.

In conditions similar to those of day one, the Rally Poland continued to the east of Mikolajki – where round eight of this year’s World Rally Championship is based.

With 149 competitive kilometres on the menu, the second day of action was the longest of Rally Poland. Two stages of more than 30 kilometres were included on the itinerary, with all the stages having an average speed of more than 110 kph.

Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia started the day in sixth place and gradually increased their pace to climb to fourth after the first run through Wydminy (SS10). « We pushed hard today » he said. « These performances have brought us a lot of satisfaction. We’ve been able to increase our speed without making any mistakes. Our notes are good and this allows us to drive at a very good pace. Tomorrow we are going to have to keep on pushing hard as the gaps are still small. »

Conrad Rautenbach and Daniel Barritt are ninth tonight, in a position to score points for the Citroën Junior Team. « We had some problems in finding the right pace this morning » he reported. « It was better in the afternoon but the roads were quite broken up. We lost a bit of time but we’re going to try and push a bit harder tomorrow and hope that we can make up a place. »

Evgeny Novikov and Dale Moscatt were a favourite of the Polish crowd thanks to their spectacular style, and they took full advantage of their return to action today to make up some places in the overall classification. « It was a tricky day » said Novikov. « We had an electronic problem in the morning and broke a wheel in the afternoon. We had to be very careful of punctures, but we still managed to set some good times. My objective is to keep on setting some good stage times tomorrow. »

« Sébastien drove a fantastic rally today » concluded Citroën Junior Team manager Benoit Nogier. « He was able to go out there and set some really good times. Tomorrow he will have a real fight on his hands with two Norwegians right behind him. His learning curve continues and tomorrow’s situation – from which he has maybe more to lose than to gain – promises to be extremely interesting. Conrad came closer to his targets today, demonstrating positive progress with every stage. Evgeny set some promising times as well, despite a small technical problem in the morning that was solved at midday service. »

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