Citroen team principal Olivier Quesnel has admitted he does have concerns over the number of C4 WRCs available for the remainder of this season.
The Citroen Sport factory has now stopped producing the C4 WRC, to focus firmly on the all-new DS3 WRC that will take over from the current car in time for next year.
The issue arises from the number of C4s currently in action at the highest level, with the Citroen Total World Rally Team running two, the Red Bull Juniors out with two more on all but one round of this year's series and Petter Solberg's own team running a further two cars on all 15 rallies. Quesnel admitted he was unable to source more C4s to run Conrad Rautenbach and Gigi Galli's programs this season.
"We had to say no to them [Rautenbach and Galli] in case something happens and we can't have everything ready in time for the next race," Quesnel said. This is Citroen and we want everything to be at the highest level, we couldn't take the chance.
"I hope there won't be any more cars destroyed or it could be a big problem. It's too complicated now to build any new C4s and we have a lot of cars competing. Obviously, we want a lot of Citroens in the rally – it is my job to make this happen – and with the customers we have out there, we have said: 'It is OK to do one season.' Everything can still happen, but I'm sure it will be fine."
The Ford team is in a similar position to Citroen, with M-Sport now at its capacity building Fiesta Super 2000s and parts for the Fiesta RS WRC – so a spate of shell-wrecking shunts would cause problems for the British team as well.