Yvan Muller admits that with Citroën’s World Touring Car rivals improving at the same time as the team gaining compensation weight it presents an “altogether more challenging” prospect for the marque.
Whilst Muller took both a pole position and a victory at the Hungaroring on Sunday, race two featured the first podium all season which did not have a Citroën driver on it. Muller puts this down to a number of factors, including the track, the team’s rivals and the weight.
“It is one of the reasons,” said Muller when asked by TouringCars.Net if the additional weight caused the lack of a race two fightback. “The compensation weight didn’t help us. But the track didn’t help us as well and also the other cars made some progress, so altogether it’s a bit more challenging for us.”
Muller added that the weight had made it more difficult to brake late, resulting in the Frenchman getting stuck behind Tom Coronel for the majority of the second race in Budapest. Muller eventually finished fifth as the top Citroën driver in the race.
“When I was behind Tom he went out of the last corner a bit faster than me, so for me to try to overtake him at the first corner it was too risky,” added Muller. “Especially here at this track there are some problems on the brakes and especially with the weight it didn’t help on that as well, so at one point I said ‘OK, I don’t want to take any more risk than that just for one point’.”
Muller leaves Hungary just ten points behind team-mate José María López and admits that his recent haul of points – which has seen him stand on the podium in three of the last four races – has been crucial to maintaining championship momentum.
“That was important after the big points I lost in Marrakech,” said Muller. “It was important for me to come back as much as I could. There is still a ten point gap – the season is long and anything can happen, but the most important thing is that Citroën are on the pace. Now we have to stay focussed and work hard to keep our pace.”