Petter just confirmed that he will be doing Rally Norway in a Citroen Xsara WRC of -06 spec. A lot of details regarding the start are still unknown, but still it’s obvious that it’s a disappointment. Here is why:

• The Xsara WRC is quite old. Launched in 2002 and left by the works team after 2005, it’s now been more than three years since it was a works car (even though it seemed to be semi-works ran in 2006).
• Citroen has been very greedy when it comes to parts on the private Xsara’s. Daniel Carlsson and Manfred Stohl was nothing else than swindled going into the Kronos team for 2007 in the Xsara. They got old parts and had a car that – no matter what driver – wasn’t even close to winning speed for most of the season. Petter will fit some new parts to it himself, and maybe he has also got better luck, but I can’t imagine Citroen releasing parts good enough to have a chance to beat their C4′s. He will have to do a lot himself…
• Petter has been first driver in front of Atkinson since 05 – now Atkinson sits in a C4 and Petter in a Xsara. Petter has a big ego (as a rally driver should have) and it will barely fit into the car now. He doesn’t expect to have winning speed – he just want to do a showoff to his home public. Probably he will go hard, but he will always have the excuse that it’s just a showoff. Not a good mental start…

So, why did Petter choose this quite faded car? Well, it starts in the last point up there. He wants to do a showoff. Safe sources tell that Petter tested in northern Värmland in Sweden this weekend – and both the Citroen and Ramsport (Ford, close to MSport) teams were there. Petter tested the Xsara for sure, maybe a C4 (but I don’t think so) and a Focus, probably a 07 or 08 spec. Of course the Ford is better than the Xsara – and the C4 too – if that was a choice. But… If he chose them – he would have been compared to Hirvonen, Latvala, Loeb, Sordo – and all the Citroen Juniors including Atko. For sure they would all have better parts than Petter (maybe he could have got the same as the Citroen juniors though). Also, Petter would have gone straight into the car without many km’s of testing, while Loeb, Sordo, Hirvonen and Latvala has already done seasons in their cars. Considering his struggling the last few years in Subaru, it would have been a catastrophe to his brand to fail in a car directly compareable to the best. Everyone would wonder “Now that Petter is in a good car – can he match the others?” an it would of course be unfair to him – as many WRC privateers have unfair chances in every rally they do.

The Xsara is quite the opposite… Even though it’s a disappointment to me and the rest of the rally community – Petter himself can only win. If he – in some strange manner – has managed to get good parts, he can become an underdog and strike from behind. Then it wont be “considering he’s in a good car” – instead it will be “despite he’s in a bad car”. And if he hasn’t, he will still just be bad because of the car. Not a big problem.

So, I’m quite sure the Xsara wasn’t the fastest option Petter could choose – just the best to himself. And I understand him. Probably he’ll do a good showoff, get somewhere in the top 10 and maybe even score some points. Then he can do what really matters to him – find a good, long term, solution.