Local man Craig Breen is continuing to fly the Irish flag high on the World Rally Championship circuit having announced his new deal with Citroen Racing via Facebook in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
“So excited to tell you all that me and Scott will be driving for Citroën Racing in the WRC for the next two years! This is the stuff that dreams are made of, thank you so much to everybody who has made this possible!”
Just a few days after the Citroen C3 WRC concept car was unveiled, Citroen made it a clean sweep this morning announcing their complete crews until 2018. Craig Breen and co-driver Scott Martin will be joined by the combinations of Kris Meeke with Paul Nagle along with Stéphane Lefebvre and Gabin Moreau. Chairman of Aby Dhabi Racing, Sheikh Khalid Al Qassimi will also be competing at a number of 2017 events with co-drive Chris Patterson.
According to Citroen Racing
This choice is very much in line with Citroën’s long-held policy aimed at identifying and developing talented young rally drivers. In the last 15 years or more, Citroën has identified some of the best in the business: Loeb, Ogier, Sordo, Neuville, Camilli and of course Meeke. Breen and Lefebvre are destined to add their names to this illustrious list!
At the start of the season, the team will enter two Citroën C3 WRCs: one for Kris Meeke and the other for either Craig Breen or Stéphane Lefebvre, who will alternate driving duties. The exact distribution of events to drivers will be announced at a later stage and Citroën will start entering three cars as soon as possible. The FIA’s World Motorsport Council recently decided it would let manufacturers enter three cars, the top two scoring points towards the Manufacturers World Championship.
Happy to announce that me and Scott will be driving for @CitroenRacing in the WRC for the next two seasons! Thanks to everybody, what a day! pic.twitter.com/XKl8nvehaS
— Craig Breen (@Craig_Breen) October 5, 2016
Breen made history in July of this year, achieving what no other rally driver from the Republic Of Ireland had done previously by recording a top three overall finish at a WRC event, that tie in Rally Finland, one of the calendar’s toughest events.
Kevin Regan spoke to Craig at the time, which you can hear below.
