Citroën team principal Yves Matton reflects on a successful season

After dominating in their first season in the FIA World Touring Car Championship, with ten poles from 12 events and 17 wins from 23 races, Citroën team principal Yves Matton reflects on the French manufacturers’ first season, which saw close inner-team battles within Citroën as well as a late charge from the rivals at the tail end of the season.

The French marque hit the ground running in Marrakech in April, scoring pole position and a 1-2-3 finish in their very first race, with their closest rival over a second off the pace.

“Never we could imagine we’d have such a successful year,” said Matton to TouringCarTimes. “For sure we worked very hard on the car, and we took some small risks by starting the car so early, and designing the car without all the latest technical regulations, but at the end I think it’s partly what gave us the early success in the season..due to the fact it was quite difficult for the other teams in the first part of the season to improve their car.

“(But) step-by-step they were closer and closer. We knew that Honda were working a lot during the summer and at the end of the season, and they’re working a lot for next year. So the situation was more normal during the second part of the season and in the last events in Asia.

“Also…the circuits were a little bit different in the second part of the season. Some circuits’ average speed was slower and with slower corners, which helped the other teams.”

With Honda, not able to develop their Civic TC1 as early as Citroën whilst their were busy fighting for the championship in 2013 with their “TC2T” predessor, the Japanese marque has embarked on an intensive programme over the winter break in order to try and overhaul the gap to Citroën, but the French marque, despite not testing in the last part of 2014, won’t become complacent.

“We will improve the car,” said Matton. “I won’t say what we will improve, but for sure we are working on the small faults we found on the car, certainly on the slow corner pace where I think the car is not 100%, and we will introduce these new evolutions in Argentina. For sure we’ve tested less at the end of the season but we will start to test again for the beginning of next year.

“We will rebuild the cars we have at the moment, and we have to build one new car as we will have five cars on the track; this year we had only four cars, so one car will be new, the others will be rebuilt.”

On how Citroën’s drivers faired in 2014, with López taking the title in style, while Yvan Muller struggled both in adapting to the new style of car and also with a number of incidents which without exception were none of his own doing, Matton held the highest praise for Argentina’s newest World Champion while respecting both Muller’s and Loeb’s achievements this year.

“For me, all the drivers did a great job for sure. Pechito, I will not say was a big surprise, but a surprise, because at the end he was really consistent during the year. Like all the champions, sometimes you have a year where everything is working for you, and it was much like that for Pechito this year. It was a really good year, and the results show his level.

“Yvan also had a good year, but for sure it was not his best year, but not due his driving. He himself has said maybe during the first part of the year he had, maybe not a lack of concentration, but maybe some external things were having an influence on his involvement; but he showed his speed and knowledge is still there and his motivation is still there, and he showed in the second part of the season he’ll be one of the drivers who next year will fight for the title.

“He was also not really lucky, there were some race incidents where he was involved which were not his fault, and it started straight away from the first race in Marrakech, some years are like that, Pechito had a perfect year and things were going well for him, and Yvan had the opposite.

“Sébastien showed that he’s improving race after race. He showed that he had the speed, again in Macau, the time that he was able to do during qualifying and practice showed that he understands how to drive the car…and I think that next year, he will also be in a position to fight for the title.”

Managing a competitive driver trio can be tricky, and it was a new experience for Citroën this year, a manufacturer which usually has only had to manage their driver relationships through the very different rallying discipline. Although throughout the year there was occassional contact while fighting through the field, the most notable incidents occurred in Shanghai and Salzburg, with Yvan Muller eliminated from both races following contact with both his team-mates Loeb and López respectively, with Muller lambasting his team-mate for the Salzburgring incident.

“We knew that Pechito, Yvan and Séb all want to win, the fact that they were on the same track was something new for us and that it could make some trouble between the drivers,” said Matton. “We applied the same philosophy we applied before in the World Rally Championship, in that we tried to have a lot of communication between our drivers, transparency, and to try to speak about all the situations that our drivers were involved in, and thanks to our philosophy I think we were able to manage our drivers during the year and I think that the atmosphere and the collaboration between our drivers was very good.

“I think it was difficult to avoid some drivers having a bad reaction when they were involved in a crash in the minutes following this accident, but after they were able to communicate and find out why it happened and how to avoid it happening again in the future.”

After 13 years in the FIA World Rally Championship, Citroën’s move to compete in both the WRC and the WTCC this year was the start of a new adventure for the French manufacturer, and after one year in the Championship, Citroën are happy with the move and the relationship they have with their competitors and the Championship’s promoter Eurosport Events, and hopes with Volvo rumoured to be joining the WTCC late next year if not for 2016, and with other manufacturers also in talks, the championship will return to its pre-2011 level as a close multi-manufacturer championship

“We think the new technical regulations brought a lot of new interest to the championship, “said Matton. “From the start of the championship people had a lot of questions on whether the championship would lose its DNA, but i think in the end the DNA from touring cars is still there. There’s still door-to-door contact, and the cars look better.

“I also have to say that I think Eurosport is doing a really good job, not only on the promotion, but also on the collaboration that they have with the teams, and for me it’s the best promoter I’ve worked with.”

“I think for the future we need at least one more manufacturer, and that the other manufacturers improve their level, but we know that Honda are working a lot and we hope that next year they’ll be at the same level we are to have more exciting races, like we had in the last few rounds. I also hope that Volvo will be there in the second part of the season, and that we’ll have one or two more manufacturers in the full championship for 2016.”