Anyone who has been following this Portugal Rally will know that Keith and Alister's cars 'died' in a stream on the second stage Sat morning , Alister got going again but next time around it stopped completely however i don't think everybody knows the full facts and if you were to read the Citroen press release they tell it differently .
You can read here :
http://www.citroen-wrc.com/en/2013/...-driver-en/5005/bryan-bouffier-takes-control/
The water splash or stream even though was quite long but was no more then eight maybe ten inch's deep but where the air intake for the DS3 is on the co-drivers side on the bottom of the bumper - more or less where a fog light would be positioned if it was on a road car and just in-front of the front right wheel - I have a red circle around it on the third picture - the front of the DS3.
All the drivers were warned of this and when Keith went in to it so slowly his car stopped , than Ali , Gilbert , Campedelli was on the start line of the stage and got a call that there was three DS3's stopped in the stream and was told to do some 'Mod's' to the air in take which he did - (ill get on to more about this later), but when he arrived into the stream the same thing happened to him , Bouffier drove through it like he was driving a WRC car - flat out ! how he got away with it i don't know and Chardonnet when he got through the car 'spluttered' for a while but it stayed going . Asked for the rest - most had the same problem but got away with it .
On further inspection of the cars that didn't really have any problems - as you will see from the pictures attached you will see that they had a hole cut out on the pipe up to the airbox with a rubber flap on it (picture 2) , this is behind the bumper and infront of the right wheel , so that if the water came in it would be pushed out the back of the airbox - pushing the flap out with the force of the water . If you look to the left of the 2nd and 3rd picture which is taken under the front right wheel arch you can see the front right tyre . On the cars that stopped they didn't have any flap but a hole where i have filled in red (picture 1) - right in-front of the tyre .This is what Campedelli done before the stage - broke a hole at the back of the box .
So whats the idea of the rubber flap ?? Talking to Alister after- the engineer that he is
he was of the opinion that you were better off with no hole in the back of the box because while there was no water came in the front through the bumper , when the front wheel was rotating it was churning the water around to the front of the wheel and going back in through the hole in the airbox and sucking it back up into the engine . If you had a flap on it the water couldn't get back in !! ... The teams that had the flap obviously have seen this before and came up with this idea
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![DS3_2.jpg]()
![DS3_1.jpg]()
![Citroen_DS3_R3_011 (1).jpg]()
So this is my beef , I don't blame DGM ,Sainteloc or any of the teams at all , i blame Citroën , for a team that have so many WRC titles between Drivers and manufacturers and designed rally cars that have dominated the WRC for the last ten years how they came up with this design I just don't know . You go out there and pay some where around €100,000 for a Citroën DS3 R3 car , it costs somewhere around €30,000 to €40,000 to go down to Portugal to do the event and the car dies a sorry death in just eight inch's of water ! Citroën themselves actually told the teams to go slow through the stream , but 'shrugged' their shoulders in service Sat night when four of the cars arrived back in to service on tow trucks . They didn't say there was a problem with the design in any of their 'Press releases' ... but why would they ? They had a French one , two , three on the podium .....but not very nice for Keith or Alister to go back to the few sponsors they have to get the money to go down to Sardinia for the next one ...
You can read here :
http://www.citroen-wrc.com/en/2013/...-driver-en/5005/bryan-bouffier-takes-control/
The water splash or stream even though was quite long but was no more then eight maybe ten inch's deep but where the air intake for the DS3 is on the co-drivers side on the bottom of the bumper - more or less where a fog light would be positioned if it was on a road car and just in-front of the front right wheel - I have a red circle around it on the third picture - the front of the DS3.
All the drivers were warned of this and when Keith went in to it so slowly his car stopped , than Ali , Gilbert , Campedelli was on the start line of the stage and got a call that there was three DS3's stopped in the stream and was told to do some 'Mod's' to the air in take which he did - (ill get on to more about this later), but when he arrived into the stream the same thing happened to him , Bouffier drove through it like he was driving a WRC car - flat out ! how he got away with it i don't know and Chardonnet when he got through the car 'spluttered' for a while but it stayed going . Asked for the rest - most had the same problem but got away with it .
On further inspection of the cars that didn't really have any problems - as you will see from the pictures attached you will see that they had a hole cut out on the pipe up to the airbox with a rubber flap on it (picture 2) , this is behind the bumper and infront of the right wheel , so that if the water came in it would be pushed out the back of the airbox - pushing the flap out with the force of the water . If you look to the left of the 2nd and 3rd picture which is taken under the front right wheel arch you can see the front right tyre . On the cars that stopped they didn't have any flap but a hole where i have filled in red (picture 1) - right in-front of the tyre .This is what Campedelli done before the stage - broke a hole at the back of the box .
So whats the idea of the rubber flap ?? Talking to Alister after- the engineer that he is
he was of the opinion that you were better off with no hole in the back of the box because while there was no water came in the front through the bumper , when the front wheel was rotating it was churning the water around to the front of the wheel and going back in through the hole in the airbox and sucking it back up into the engine . If you had a flap on it the water couldn't get back in !! ... The teams that had the flap obviously have seen this before and came up with this idea .
So this is my beef , I don't blame DGM ,Sainteloc or any of the teams at all , i blame Citroën , for a team that have so many WRC titles between Drivers and manufacturers and designed rally cars that have dominated the WRC for the last ten years how they came up with this design I just don't know . You go out there and pay some where around €100,000 for a Citroën DS3 R3 car , it costs somewhere around €30,000 to €40,000 to go down to Portugal to do the event and the car dies a sorry death in just eight inch's of water ! Citroën themselves actually told the teams to go slow through the stream , but 'shrugged' their shoulders in service Sat night when four of the cars arrived back in to service on tow trucks . They didn't say there was a problem with the design in any of their 'Press releases' ... but why would they ? They had a French one , two , three on the podium .....but not very nice for Keith or Alister to go back to the few sponsors they have to get the money to go down to Sardinia for the next one ...
