Craig Breen gets Citroen WRC seat for Rally Poland
Craig Breen's next World Rally Championship outing with Citroen will be on June's Rally Poland, when he will effectively be team leader in Kris Meeke's absence
As Citroen team principal Yves Matton revealed to Autosport in January, confirmed 2017 factory driver Kris Meeke will not contest every rally the squad is competing on in this year's partial programme, as it wants to give Breen and third driver Stephane Lefebvre fair chances to stake their claim for next year.
The PH Sport-run 2016 Citroen effort's next appearance will be with Meeke, Lefebvre and Khalid Al-Qassimi on Rally Portugal next month.
It then skips Sardinia before Breen and Lefebvre line up in Poland at the start of July.
"I did the event as an ERC round in 2013, but it was a washout," Breen told Autosport.
"It rained all the time and the stages really didn't bear much resemblance to what they should be like.
"I was out on the event doing WRC Live radio work [in 2015], which meant I got to drive some of the stages and got a feel for what the event's like.
"It's fantastic news to know the next event is coming. I'll be out in Portugal on the recce as well."
Though Citroen is not officially contesting the next WRC round in Argentina later this month, PH Sport will field a DS 3 for local hero Marcos Ligato.
Last weekend Breen returned to the European Rally Championship on a one-off basis to contest the Circuit of Ireland, which he won for a second straight year.
He is already determined to be back in 2017 to chase a hat-trick.
"I'll do whatever it takes to come back, I love the event," Breen said.
"I'm concentrating on the rest of the year now and we'll look at doing it again next year.
"I wanted desperately to win the event for the first time last year and to win it again this year is incredible."
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