News: Ireland's Craig Breen takes rally top spot with Peugeot

 

Craig Breen, Super World Rally Championship winner 2012, will race in eight European Rally Championship (ERC) events this year and has landed the new Peugeot Sport Factory Rally Driver title. Craig's first rally event for 2013, competing in the colours of Peugeot Sport, will be at the Rally Liepaja-Ventspils, Latvia 1- 3 February.



Craig, Irish International Driver of the Year 2012, has long been loyal to Peugeot and is already very familiar with the 207 Super 2000, having driven it during many IRC events. The Rallye du Var, France, formed a fitting 2012 finale for Craig in his Peugeot 207 Super 2000, when the newly crowned SWRC Champion showcased all his capabilities and climbed from 6th to seize third podium position.

The performance rounded off a sensational 2012 season for Craig, who hails from Waterford,  and now his allegiance to Peugeot Sport continues.

Under his new Peugeot Sport partnership, Craig has been selected to take his place alongside two other young rally stars, Jérémi Ancian and Stéphane Lefebvre, at a new Peugeot Sport Rally Academy.

When not competing in the Peugeot 207 S2000, Craig will lead an intensive test programme for the new Peugeot 208 Type R5, destined for the ERC scene in late 2013.

On the announcement from Peugeot Sport, Craig Breen said, "This is incredible and beyond my dreams. I am really excited to work with a manufacturer like Peugeot Sport."

Craig has also contributed to the development of the Peugeot 208 R2, and he drove the "zero car" at the Ulster Rally in 2012. Peugeot Sport has confirmed 56 orders for the Peugeot 208 R2 across 14 countries, including one unit destined for Ireland later this month. Tipperary man, Andrew Slattery, will run the car in six events here in Ireland in 2013.

News: Renault & Caterham team up to revive Alpine

Renault is going ahead with its revival of the classic Alpine sports car brand, and it's bringing in sports car specialists (and burgeoning F1 team) Caterham to help it out.

The Alpines which came from the original factory in the French seaside town of Dieppe were rallying legends back in the seventies, especially the achingly pretty A110 (pictured, bottom) which won the Monte Carlo Rally. The Alpine team was also instrumental in Renault's 1978 Le Mans 24hrs win, even though by then, the process to turn independent Alpine into wholly-Renault-owned RenaultSport had already begun.

Alpine's days as a road car maker ended in the mid-nineties when the little-seen A610, a rival for the Porsche 911, went out of production and the brand has been dormant since, even though its Dieppe home-base has still been busy with RenaultSport projects, including the much-loved hot versions of the Clio and Megane.

Now though, the Alpine badge is going to be revived for a series of road cars, which Renault teased earlier this year with a concept, based on the Dezir sports car concept (above). And to help it get future Alpines designed and into production, Renault has brought Caterham on board.

Caterham is well known to motoring enthusiasts as the makers of the long-lived Caterham 7 sports car, a no-frills, back-to-basics two-seater that generally regarded as one of the best-to-drive, and fastest, cars around. The two companies, Renault and Caterham, already have a connection as Caterham's Formula One team uses Renault F1 engines. Caterham was bought last year by Malaysian businessman Tony Fernandes, who owns the Air Asia airline and who brought the Lotus name back into Formula One three years ago, only to buy up Caterham following a gruelling court battle that saw Lotus Cars take the name back off him. Now, Caterham doesn't just have its small sports car factory and its F1 team, it also has CTI, Caterham Technologies International, which is the bit that Renault is interested in – CTI's expertise in low-volume designs and carbon-fibre construction is just the ticket to get Alpine back on the road.

So what can we expect? Well, Alpine's traditions are based around mid-or-rear-engined sports cars, using relatively simple, low-powered (compared to some of the competition) Renault engines and majoring on light weight and agility. The hefty-looking concept version, which was based around the engine and chassis of a Megane race car, will likely not make it through to production.

“This innovative partnership with Caterham embodies a longstanding ambition: the creation of a sports car with the Alpine DNA. It carries both opportunities for the Dieppe plant and the development of its historic know-how" said Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Renault.

“I have not felt as excited about a new venture since I launched AirAsia in 2001 and I want to thank Carlos Ghosn and Carlos Tavares and everyone in our new Renault family for having the belief in Caterham Group to create this partnership" said Tony Fernandes. "Many people doubted us 11 years ago when we launched our airline and I am sure that there will be doubters again this time, but we will not fail your trust. We know the markets we are going into and, particularly in my playground in Asia, there is a huge opportunity to replicate the AirAsia model and give consumers access to exciting, affordable products that marry our interests in F1 and technology and help make their dreams come true.”

Road Test: Citroen DS3 Racing

Price as tested: €30,495

+ Fun, high quality, gorgeous
– Bit pricey, other than that not much
= Other may be purist but the DS3 is more fun

In a motoring world where convention is king (“I’ll have that in silver please, with black upholstery” is the phrase most often heard in Irish dealerships) it is refreshing, like zesty mineral water on a hot day, to drive something a bit naughty.

And naughty is not often a word that you would apply to Citroen. Quirky? Yes. Comfortable? Absolutely. But naughty? Not so much. That kind of changed when the little DS3 hatch was introduced. Take the chassis and engines from a C3, add a healthy measure of the kind of appealing styling and sporty driving experience that has made the Mini such a storming success, garnish with a sprinkle of the DS badge magic, shake over ice and pour... It’s been a storming success in Europe (albeit much, much less so in Ireland) and is a sharp-edged competitor to the Anglo-German hatch.

The Racing is all of the same ingredients, with about a quart of Wasabi added to the mixture. It takes the 150bhp DSport model as its basis, cranks the (BMW-sourced) 1.6-litre petrol turbo engine up to 204bhp, adds a chassis tweaked and balanced by the sorcerers at Citroen Rally Sport (which has utterly dominated the World Rally Championship in recent years) and served it up as a grey-and-blinding-orange, €32k playzone.

There are few things better in life than a quick, well-balanced hot hatch and the DS3 Racing is certainly not going to upset that assertion. It gives you all the performance you could reasonably ask for, unless you are a track-day junkie, yet it remains practical, spacious and comfortable enough for everyday driving.

Aside from the damage to your retinas that the paintjob will cause, the most abiding memory you will take from driving the Racing is the performance of its engine. And oddly enough, not because it is savagely powerful but because it seems so unassuming.

That’s a strange thing to say about a hopped-up turbo job, but it’s true. There is so little turbo lag and the power is delivered so linearly that you start to doubt, just a little that it really has its advertised power output. Its other significant rival, the RenaultSport Clio 200, has a similar grunt figure but it’s all delivered, in one mad dash, at the top of the power band, making it more exciting in extremis than that Citroen, but maddening and frustrating at all other times. The Racing, with its diesel-like low-down shove, is much more accessible, and yes, I consider that a good thing.

It’ll still do the 0-100kmh dash in 6.5secs (hardly blistering I know, but it feels pretty rapid in a car this compact) and will run on to a top speed of 235kmh (given space and legality, of course). Yet its fuel consumption is reasonable claimed 6.4-litres per 100km, which you should be able to match, or at least get close to, in real world driving.

It’s the chassis, rather surprisingly, that feels unruly and naughty. Normally, cars tweaked by motorsport departments are set up for cold, clinical apex-annihilation. Racers want cars that go as quick as possible, even if the quickest way sometimes looks and feels the slowest. The DS3 Racing, rather pleasingly, eschews this for a more on-the-edge feel. It’s not really anywhere near the limits of its abilities on the public road, it just likes to make you think that it is. It does this through steering that feels a touch ragged, with a nibble of torque steer at the edges, and handling that washes surprisingly quickly into understeer. Now, technically, this is not good, but it is enjoyable as you feel as if you’re really pressing on when in reality, you’re actually just cruising. A classic case of being better by appearing worse.

What I particularly like about the DS3 (in all its forms) is the way it really nails the static quality side of things. Renault’s hot Clio is all business-like plain plastics and underwhelming styling, preferring you to concentrate on the chassis and engine. Which is fine if you’re lapping the Nurburgring, but not so good if you’re stuck in traffic on the Wellpark Road, casting around the cabin for something nice to look at. The DS3’s funky exterior styling, its high-quality cabin (yes, in a Citroen) and its decent rear space and boot mark it out as a car that gets the true ownership essentials right.

So, it’s not a paragon of hot hatch handling, or even grunt for that matter. A Mini Cooper S Works offers (slightly) more power, a RenaultSport Clio has sharper steering and handling and, frankly, a VW Golf GTI has the lot licked for all-round appeal. But, like an engagingly naughty child, the DS3 Racing’s character shines through, and in a world of grey cars, that is truly something to be happy about.


Facts & Figures

Citroen DS3 Racing
Price as tested: €32,990
Range price: €17,490 to €32,990
Capacity: 1,598cc
Power: 204bhp
Torque: 275Nm
Top speed: 220kmh
0-100kmh: 6.5sec
Economy: 5.4l-100km (44.1mpg)
CO2 emissions: 149g/km
VRT Band: C. €330 road tax
Euro NCAP rating: 5-star; 87% adult, 71% child, 35% pedestrian, 83% safety assist