In the lead up to Hyundai and Toyota’s showdown for the manufacturers’ title in Japan later this month, we’re looking back at some of the greatest manufacturer fights in World Rally Championship history. We asked you to vote for your top-five, and this is what you picked at number five.
Rivalry can be defined as competition for the same objective or for superiority in the same field. In the case of Peugeot and Citroën’s mission to win the World Rally Championship in the early 2000s, you can add ‘from within the same fold’ to that line.
At a time when manufacturer interest in the WRC was booming, World Rally Car programs were greenlit for both PSA group marques Peugeot and Citroën – creating direct competition from within the same company.
The French were not alone in such tactics. Volkswagen Audi Group brands Seat and Škoda were also direct rivals in this period, but its Cordoba WRC and Octavia (then Fabia) WRC proved nowhere near as competitive as Peugeot’s 206 or Citroën’s Xsara.
Ironically, all four were represented in the Formula 2 Kit Car game of the late 1990s as well, but for the purposes of this article let’s leave Seat and Škoda behind and instead turn full attention to the French revolution.
Citroën won two WRC events outright with its F2 Kit Car Xsara
Today, history tells us that Citroën ultimately got the better of Peugeot largely thanks to the exploits of its greatest son, Sébastien Loeb. A combined nine drivers’ or manufacturers’ titles is a strong return from Peugeot, but is clearly trumped by Citroën’s 17.
But at the time, Peugeot was the brand with the stronger rallying pedigree. Citroën had atoned for the cumbersome BX 4TC of the 1980s with Philippe Bugalski’s pair of outright WRC wins in a front-wheel-drive F2 car in 1999, but Peugeot was similarly rapid with its iconic 306 Maxi Kit Car – and had been a world beater twice over with successive drivers’ and manufacturers’ championships in 1985 and ’86 with its 205 T16 during the revered Group B era.
Peugeot and Citroën ultimately devised a similar strategy to plotting World Rally Car glory, but under very different circumstances. Initially the WRC was Peugeot’s playground, and Citroën wasn’t allowed to play.
Peugeot announced its intention to rejoin the WRC with its all-new 206 WRC midway through 1998, with a partial campaign in 1999 preceding a full attack in the year 2000. François Delecour, Gilles Panizzi and Marcus Grönholm were entrusted as drivers for that toe-in-the-water year, and the potential was immediately obvious as Panizzi scored second in Sanremo – narrowly missing out on victory after an epic final stage from Mitsubishi’s world champion Tommi Mäkinen.
The die was cast when Grönholm recorded his maiden WRC win in Sweden the following year. It was the first of four victories for the Finn that year as he wrapped up the drivers’ title and Peugeot beat Ford to the manufacturers’ crown. It was the perfect start, and the silverware kept on coming.
Marcus Grönholm and Peugeot were the ones to beat at the turn of the 21st century
Although Grönholm lost his drivers’ title to Subaru’s Richard Burns in 2001, the 206 WRC still proved the package to beat as Peugeot notched up a second manufacturers’ title in a row. And with Burns teaming up with Grönholm at Peugeot for 2002, the 206 dominated both championships – winning eight of that year’s 14 events.
But the claimer of one of those victories would emphatically – and controversially – bring the fight to Peugeot in 2003.
Citroën.
The Xsara Kit Car’s aforementioned success against the World Rally Cars influenced the FIA’s decision to scrap Formula 2 at the end of 1999, and left Citroën in need of a new rallying plan.
With designs on a full-fat WRC entry for 2001, the Xsara Kit Car was developed into the Xsara T4 WRC and debuted in Catalunya, but the PSA Group forbade any official entry as that would mean competing directly against stablemate Peugeot.
Instead, the Xsara was entered into just four events, but a ruling from the WRC Commission following Catalunya decided that Citroën would not be able to score manufacturer points.
Loeb's Germany win in 2002 proved Citroën's capabilities ahead of its fully-fledged WRC entry
The same caveat applied to 2002 as well, as Citroën upped its program to nine WRC events and achieved its second success with a WRC car (after Jesús Puras, Corsica 2001) thanks to Loeb in Germany. Grönholm and Peugeot may have cleaned up, but a civil war was brewing.
Having proved the dominant package in 2002, the Finn and his 206 began 2003 – Citroën’s first as a full-time contender – as favorites. But a Xsara 1-2-3 at the Monte Carlo Rally outlined Citroën’s credentials. As did the acquisition of world champions Carlos Sainz and Colin McRae who both moved across from Ford.
Peugeot still had an impressive lineup of Grönholm and Burns, flanked by the rotating cast of Panizzi and Harri Rovanperä in the third car. But it was clear that its mission to win a fourth manufacturers’ title on the bounce would be far from easy.
As it happened, neither marque would net the 2003 drivers’ title – that accolade going the way of Subaru’s Petter Solberg – but maybe Citroën could have done had it not asked Loeb to sacrifice his own personal interest for that of the team.
Peugeot and Citroën became rivals as well as friends within the same automotive group
After a nail-biting season, just five points separated the PSA stablemates heading into the Rally GB finale, with Citroën holding the advantage. Closest rival Subaru was 49 points down on Peugeot – highlighting the superiority of the two brands.
Ultimately the fight would go Citroën’s way with Loeb finishing second and Grönholm damaging a wheel and famously unable to continue after a run-in with the Welsh police, thus beginning a period of unprecedented dominance from the Xsara, C4 and then DS3 WRC.
As for Peugeot, it made the ill-fated switch to the 307 WRC for 2004 and was out of the championship by the end of 2005. Officially, so was Citroën but a U-turn from the board meant it re-committed for 2007 and remained part of the WRC until 2019.
It’s interesting, though, to contemplate the effect Citroën’s speedy success had on Peugeot’s WRC fate. Perhaps it would have stuck around longer had its fiercest rival not come from within the same family. It’s a scenario that has never been repeated in world rallying in the years since.
