Frequelin: 'Sainz is as quick as McRae'

"We were already talking to him this summer but we preferred Colin McRae because he's younger," Citroen Sport team boss Guy Frequelin told WRC.com. "When Ford didn't re-sign its drivers we got in touch with Carlos again and it all came together quite quickly.

"It's very important for us to have Carlos in the squad. We have got Sebastien Loeb, who is a big hope but lacks experience and we have got Colin McRae, who is very quick. I think that Carlos is just as quick as McRae. He is going to help us enormously, thanks to his experience and also with his signing we have got three very important markets covered: France, Great Britain and Spain."

The decision to run a third car means a lot more work for Citroen but Frequelin is confident that it will not dilute the team's competitiveness.

"It's nearly a month's extra work," he admits. "We have got to hire 30 more people and our running costs will increase about 30 percent. Generally we were against running three permanent cars as Peugeot do. Maybe teams should be forced to run a young driver in the third car as the current regulations favour specialist drivers who have great experience in certain events, and clearly the budget has to increase as well."