Can the vanquished champion bounce back?

You could forgive Yvan Muller for being, at the very least, mildly irked. After all, nobody likes to be beaten by a newcomer - and certainly not by one with equal equipment. Not least when your own palmares includes four world championships with two different manufacturers, usually claimed from a position of almost total on-track dominance.

But that's the scenario Muller found himself in last year when Jose Maria Lopez, also driving one of Citroen's new C-Elysees, usurped the number one spot while Muller's relatively modest total of four race wins left him a distant second in the title standings.

In 2013 six wins and a consistent run of podiums had been enough for Muller to secure his fourth world title in relatively humble circumstances, a Chevrolet privately entered by former works team RML. Such is the new era of the World Touring Car Championship, one of tight competition and marginal gains.

It's said that Muller's frustration led to some rancour behind closed doors at Citroen, recently alluded to by series promoter Francois Ribeiro, who plans to spice up the TV package by promulgating such backstage soap opera.

Lopez was doing most of the celebrating in 2014 © XPB

"We will not hide this any more," Ribeiro told AUTOSPORT. "We will bring this to the screen, to the internet. What do you think people will remember in 10 years' time about the 2014 Formula 1 season? That the engine made less noise? No, they will remember the story between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg..."

Seated in a Granollers tapas restaurant on the eve of the series' media launch, and casually pursuing a juicy-looking prawn around his plate with a fork, Muller raises an eyebrow, smiles and gives a Gallic shrug when apprised of his putative role in Eurosport's new character-based drama.

"Between two drivers who are fighting for a championship there is always tension," he says. "It's not particular to me - look at Hamilton and Rosberg, Loeb and Ogier, Senna and Prost in the past. There is always tension in these matters.

"He [Ribeiro] wants to tell some stories to the people, to put things more private in the story. Is it a good idea or not? [Another expansive Gallic shrug] I will tell you that at the end of the year."

Certainly sharing a garage with a competitive team-mate is nothing new to Muller, from early days in the British Touring Car Championship with the likes of John Cleland, James Thompson and Jason Plato, to world championship-level intra-team rivalries with such as Gabriele Tarquini, Rickard Rydell, Alain Menu and Rob Huff. He must be accustomed, AUTOSPORT suggests, to managing a strong character in the garage next door.

"I had no problems with [John] Bintcliffe," he says. "He was not that strong! He was a nice guy. Cleland, it was OK with him. I had Thompson, too, a super guy. It was a bit more tight with Plato because he was a character...

"There's not much politics in this championship, to be honest. The atmosphere is quite friendly. There's quite a lot of older drivers - I've been friends with Gabriele [Tarquini] and Tiago [Monteiro] for a long time and we were team-mates at SEAT. I've known him [gestures at Tarquini, who is sitting at an adjacent table] for too long a time! Maybe there's a bit of tension sometimes but that's normal - we touch on-track occasionally.

Plato is among the team-mates Muller has previously grappled with © LAT

"It's normal with a driver, even more when he's in the same team, it creates some tension.

"We all know each other, we all know who can do what, and who you can't do things with. It's good to know that and it creates some respect."

Muller admits to being not at the top of his game throughout 2014. He did not adapt as quickly as he could have done to a revised WTCC technical package that introduced a number of variables: more power; lower, lighter, wider cars; bigger wheels (from 17in to 18in); the freedom to run MacPherson-strut suspension all round; and new aero including flat-bottomed chassis and high-level rear wings.

Citroen did its part by designing the C-Elysee to the new regulations - actually committing before the World Motor Sport Council ratified the changes - while rivals had to modify existing S2000 machinery, or, in the case of Honda, rush development and arrive with a sub-optimal car.

But while Lopez and circuit-racing newcomer Sebastien Loeb were able to explore the C-Elysee's theoretical performance in the simulator, Muller - like Michael Schumacher in the Mercedes simulator - found the contraption gave him motion sickness. At world championship level small differences can have a significant effect on results.

"Over this last winter I've been more focused to work on my own team, to prepare everything, to be a bit more free during the season," says Muller. "One of the things I did more in the winter was to work more on the simulator, because that was one of my negative points last year. I was not able to do it because I was sick.

This Salzburgring midfield pile-up was one of Muller's 2014 lows © XPB

"So now it's getting better. It's not perfect but it's better, and that was a disadvantage for me, I think, last season. Plus I was a bit unlucky as well; in Marrakech we crashed at the start and I lost 30 points; Salzburg some guy pushed me off; Japan I had a puncture. So all this cost me a lot of points. But still I was not on my best level. I was focused - I am focused to be on my best level during 2015."

That 'some guy' who pushed him off at the Salzburgring was actually team-mate Lopez, who edged him on to the grass off the start, leaving him to become the collateral when the Ladas of Huff and Thompson got caught up with one another. Many observers feel that was the point where Lopez asserted himself as the alpha male of the Citroen clan - and from then on Muller was, if not defeated outright, then certainly wounded.

This season represents an opportunity for Muller to reassert himself, assuming Citroen retains its position of dominance, but that is by no means a given. Honda has put its Civic through an intensive programme of development to find more power and improve the chassis, and is currently assessing which combination will be most effective given the WTCC's tight rules on changing homologated parts.

Since Citroen and Honda have only run a limited number of laps on track at the same time, at the sparsely attended official test at Barcelona, it's impossible to divine with any accuracy how much performance Honda has found - or will find. And the form of the ORECA-developed Lada Vesta is a complete unknown since it has been tested exclusively in private, at Magny-Cours.

Asking Muller how important he thinks Honda will be to the intra-Citroen battle causes him to bristle somewhat.

"I've no idea," he says. "Everybody I've talked to has said, 'Yeah, Citroen gained the championship too easily and it looks like they will win again.' First it was not easy, because to arrive at this level, that meant that we had to work hard."

He jabs a finger at the table repeatedly to emphasise his point.

"So that was not easy. We don't know how much they [Honda] have progressed over the winter. We know we've progressed a bit; how much, we don't know, because you're never sure how much you've gained.

Loeb represented Citroen at the official test

"Imagine if you gain one tenth per day of testing. Does that mean 10 days, one second? Twenty days, two seconds? Thirty days, three seconds? It's impossible - it doesn't exist, it doesn't work like this. To calculate one or two tenths is difficult. I don't know how much they will progress or how much Lada will progress. Or the Chevrolet. We will only get a fix for the year when we're on the grid of the first race."

That's a fair point, but it glosses over some important nuances; chiefly that while works Honda drivers Tarquini and Monteiro have had plenty of testing and will be in good shape, the Honda privateers have only just received their cars and will have to treat the opening races as tests.

Norbert Michelisz ran briefly at Barcelona, but Rickard Rydell and Dusan Borkovic only had time for the briefest of shakedowns in Italy before their Civics were air-freighted to Argentina for the first round. Six-foot-nine Borkovic will need further modifications to his cockpit before he can drive at 100 per cent.

Muller will also have to contend with other drivers running Citroen machinery as the works team expands to four cars. Ma Qing Hua will run a full campaign after contesting a handful of rounds last year, while Mehdi Bennani swaps his Civic for a C-Elysee to be run by Loeb's eponymous team.

"I'm used to this," says Muller. "I'm with Citroen now in this situation but I had the same thing in the past with Chevrolet and SEAT, and before that with Vauxhall in the UK.

"It's always interesting and important to have some team-mates at a good level because they push as well to get more out of the team. Lopez, Loeb and I are all very similar in terms of comments. We all go in the same ways. That's what we need. It's no problem, and so far it's even an advantage, to push the team."

Only Loeb drove at the Barcelona test, having missed other opportunities for seat time because of his run in the World Rally Championship-opening Monte Carlo Rally.

But it was interesting to see - whether watching from the pitwall or nipping up to the hospitality unit for coffee - Muller was always there, soaking up every piece of information, only briefly nudging the team-radio headset away from his ears, while Lopez went shopping with his girlfriend. From such small nuances great results can come...