Rumours suggest former Citroën WRC driver Colin McRae, who campaigned a Proudly South African Nissan Hardbody in the recent Dakar Rally, could soon replace Freddy Loix at Peugeot.
Rumours suggest former Citroën WRC driver Colin McRae, who campaigned a Proudly South African Nissan Hardbody in the recent Dakar Rally, could soon replace Freddy Loix at Peugeot.
According to the UK edition of the , the French team, currently led by two-time WRC champion Marcus Gronholm, is considering the Scot as a replacement for Freddy Loix, despite the fact that Belgian has only contested two events so far this season.
CARtoday.com reported late last year that McRae was left on the sidelines for 2004 after Citroën was forced to make the painful choice between the Scot and another former world champion, Carlos Sainz, as new rules imposed by the FIA meant that it could only field one or other alongside rising star Sébastien Loeb. A possible deal to replace the ill Richard Burns at Subaru then fell through when the Prodrive team opted to hire young Finn Mikko Hirvonen to partner current champion Petter Solberg.
McRae has since contested his first Dakar Rally and is also planning to race at Le Mans in June, possibly with a GTS class Ferrari 550 Maranello.
Loix, meanwhile, is now reported to be under pressure to help the team push the new 307 WRC to the front of the field. Although he finished fifth – and in the points – on the season-opening Rallye Monte Carlo, engine problems sidelined Loix on stage twelve of this weekend’s Swedish Rally.