13 Nov 07
'Do you have a racing licence?'
I'd been waiting for someone to ask me that question for months. Ever since passing my test at Thruxton in the summer, in fact.
When I answered in the affirmative, the Citroen Motorsport PR got quite excited. 'Do you want to drive it?'
The 'it' in question was Citroen's newest hot little rally car, the C2-R2 Max, a 190bhp, front-wheel-drive rocket I'd just had a passenger ride in. Rally pro Kris Meeke had propelled us around a makeshift tarmac and gravel circuit at Rockingham, with me grinning inanely as he executed perfect handbrake turns. Did I want a go? You bet your sweet ass I did.
Citroen's recent record in rallying has certainly been impressive. Sebastien Loeb has won the World Rally Championship (WRC) for the last three seasons and, with two events left in 2007, he's still in the hunt for a fourth title.
But the French carmaker isn't operating only at the multi-million-pound end of the rally business: it's also working hard to help aspiring drivers, with its C2-R2 entry-level rally car.
