When team principal Ron Cremen made the decision to recruit a leading driver into Citroen Team Australia for the 2015 season it was purely on the basis of securing outright results for the French marque.
One round into the 2015 season Eli Evans has secured a debut victory for Citroen, and Cremen couldn’t be happier. “It’s the result the whole team wanted, and it’s the result the car deserved,” he said.
“Am I surprised we won? To be honest I’m not. Realistically we always knew we had a good car, and when we secured Eli we knew we had a good driver, so it was just about putting the two together,” Ron continued.
After entering the Championship last season in a pair of Citroen DS3’s driven by Adrian Coppin and Tony Sullens, and securing podium results at all six Rounds, the decision by Cremen and Citroen to put Eli Evans in the car for 2016 was seen as moving things forward towards outright victory.
“I saw last year as a toe in the water exercise. We needed that full season to learn the events, work out how competitive our car was, and see where everyone else was from a speed point of view,” explained Ron.
“Sure I think everyone in the team was frustrated at one point or another last year because we wanted to be faster or secure better results, but by the end of the season I wasn’t disappointed at all. We just knew what we had to do this year to win, and by working with Eli and Glen Weston we now have that formula right.”
While the Citroen DS3 has proven dominate in front-wheel drive rallying throughout Europe, the pace of the car proved lackluster at times last season compared to the Clio of Scott Pedder and the Mazda2 of Brendan Reeves.
“For sure there is a difference between the international rules our car runs under and the Australian G2 rules the Clio and Mazda ran last year. But I think the result this weekend shows we can be competitive and win against G2 cars, even though they have more freedoms,” Cremen said.
“I think one of the key advantages for us is Eli’s experience, particularly in recent year’s in the Honda’s. I need to acknowledge Peter Evans and the Evans Motorsport team though, you can see how solid the groundwork is in Eli and even Simon (Evans) when they are in ‘rally mode’.”
“They are both such grounded drivers, both in and out of the car, and that makes my job and the job of the entire team so much easier.”
Cremen said that when the Forest Rally started last weekend his directive to Eli was to drive his own race at a pace he felt comfortable with. “I gave him that freedom, he knew what to do, he didn’t need me to tell him. You can see that on Sunday, when others had problems and he suddenly had a big gap that he managed his pace to get the car to the finish,” Ron explained.
So with one victory under their belts and just four more Rounds in this year’s East Coast Bullbars Australian Rally Championship, Cremen and Citroen Team Australia are mindful that once successful weekend won’t mean they’ll have a smooth run to title.
“It would be totally misleading to think we have a perfect car and rest on our laurels. We are fully expecting the drivers we fought with on the weekend to be even faster and more determined when we get to Canberra.”
“We had a good test in WA before the rally, and we’ll look to do another full day in Canberra. It’s important as a team we give Eli and Glen as much time in the car as possible, but on roads that represent what they will face at the rally. There is little point doing miles of testing on completely different roads, that just builds false confidence,” added Cremen.
The National Capital Rally, the second Round of the 2015 ECB ARC, gets underway in Canberra on 15th May.
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