Still a rumor.

 

Simon has been working for Citroen all year. I talked to him about this at the last running of SanRemo in '03 and he was dissappointed because he would only be a test driver.

Has been put on the back burner until at least the '06 season.

 

Thats a shame. I think he's a quick driver w/ potential, but I guess we'll have to wait until he's out of the 'test driver' phase.

 

Indeed he is. Back when he signed w/ Citroen, he had another bargin on the table to drive for the Subaru USA Rally team. Of course, when World Rally comes calling, you can't really turn it down, so off to Citroen he went.

When we talked, he was a bit down that he had to turn down Subaru, because he is/was really excited to have an opportunity to drive in the USA. If you look at his history, he does have quite the history of world level rallying, between Renault at s1600 level, 4 events with Pug back in 2000, and also other events earlier with Subaru and Ford. He's ready for it, it's just a matter of showing the bosses that be that he's better then the others.

 

Looks like Atkinson will be contesting every round except Monte Carlo next year. He probably won't be nominated for points in all of them because Sarrazin is expected to do at least 8 events this year.