Mads Ostberg sprung a big surprised at the WRC Presentation at NEC, Birmingham, in the UK.
The Norwegian driver is to return to Citroen for the Swedish Rally, at least.
Ostberg had been a regular Citroen driver in 2014 and 2015, each year finishing the top scoring driver in the team.
Mads explained:
“Well, first it's Rally Sweden, that’s the only guaranteed rally at the moment. We have ambitions and motivation to do more.
"The agreement was only made about nine o’clock this morning! It’s been a long journey from starting the conversations and even yesterday evening I didn’t know 100%. It's been a very late call.
Mads Ostberg will drive a Citroen on the 2018 Swedish Rally. Photo: Martin Holmes
"No other drives have been confirmed at the moment, but I’m working on it. I will for sure like to appear more in the WRC this year (2018), it's just not decided how we’ll do it, how many rallies, or in which brand.
"We still have our Fiesta (WRC), for the moment we are not selling it. We are renting it out to other drivers who want to do WRC events.
"It's very nice to come back. I have only good memories with Citroen, some of the best years of my life. It's been difficult since I left them, it was difficult to be private, a huge challenge,” he admitted.
Mads Ostberg ran a Ford Fiesta WRC for his own team in 2017.
Father-manager Morten added:
“Before the Swedish we will run a couple of snow rallies in Norway with the Fiesta WRC. The next rally we are planning to do is Argentina.
"Even if it is an expensive rally due to transport, we are working to get the transport cost as low as possible.
"We have one more WRC rally on the list for the first half of the year, and possibly two R5 WRC2 appearances, which ones are not decided. Second half of the season will be planned in due time.
"The bottom line is that we are working hard to get Mads’ career back on track,” Morten added.
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