Citroën starting pace in Slovakia a surprise to the team

Citroën Racing locked out the podium for both races at the Slovakiaring, the second time this year after achieving the same feat in Marrakech in April, thanks in part to excellent set of starts from drivers Yvan Muller, Sébastien Loeb and José María López, which Yvan Muller was at a loss to explain himself.

The four-time champion took his fourth win of the season in the first race, leading team-mates López and Loeb into Turn 1, with all three Citroëns comfortably ahead of Rob Huff’s fourth placed Lada before the turn into the corner.

“The start was important because if you mess your start, it’s a chance for the others to pass especially with such a wide track,” said Muller. “I then pushed hard to make a gap as between Turns 2 and 3 there was a lot of headwind so I was worried about the possible slipstream behind me.”

Although the race seemed to be plain sailing for the Citroën team, Muller added that it was a still a tough battle.

“It’s not so difficult to concentrate as Pechito (López) and Seb (Loeb) were pushing from behind and putting on the pressure, so I had to stay focussed, which is why the gap was why it was. It was a good battle.”

In race two, the Citroëns all catapulted up the order at the start, with Loeb, López and Muller second, third and fourth after the first few turns.

“I never thought we’d be on the podium for race two. I think the key was the start again, we did a fantastic start,” said Muller.

“We were all surprised about this… we didn’t do anything special. Our performance at the start was similar to Moscow, but we gained a lot of space on the start, although Ma (Qing Hua) didn’t start and then we could use the disturbance behind him to our advantage.”

With López finishing second in both races, the Argentinian’s points lead is diminished only slightly this weekend. López still leads the championship by 30 points over Yvan Muller, with Sébastien Loeb a further 13 behind.