Citroen thrilled with Robert Kubica's Var performance

The Polish driver crashed out of the event on the penultimate test after opening a five-minute advantage.

He had commanded proceedings in a factory specification Citroen C4 WRC and was searching for a hat-trick of victories, having shown similar dominance to win his previous two rallies in Italy.

Despite Kubica's early exit from the Sainte-Maxine-based event, Matton was impressed with what he had seen from the one-time Formula 1 race winner.

"He is very professional. On the first point that I met with him, before he did his first rally with Citroen, he showed so much motivation," said Matton.

"He wants to compete in the rally so much, he has so much passion for the sport. This is one of the reasons why we wanted to do something for him - to show him as an example to all young drivers that this comes from motivation, but he has so much motivation for the WRC.

"Robert has done a normal job, he was using the car very well."

Rallye du Var was the second event in Kubica's two-event programme with Citroen. He won last week's Rally di Como in the same C4 WRC.