Rovanpera to skip France and Spain

When Rovanpera was announced as Peugeot's second driver for next season he scheduled to contest the Rallye de France and Rallye Catalunya in a Bozian-run 206 WRC in order to prepare the Finn for when he contests the rallies next season. However his focus has been switched to help prepare the 307 WRC for its debut next year.

"We have competed in Corsica and in Catalunya several times, but never with a competitive WRC car, so driving it through with a customer car once again wouldn't have given us anything new, really," Rovanpera told his personal website. "A works team car or a newer version of a customer car was simply not available with such a short notice.

"The most important thing now is to get ready for the season 2004, so we are of course accepting all the extra opportunities for testing in order to get to know our next year's tool as thoroughly as possible."

Rovanpera will be back in the 206 for the final round of the season in Wales.
"We drove our tests (with the 206 WRC) for the rally of Wales in Great Britain at the beginning of October, and we'll start in the season's final round with our minds set on scoring the maximum points in the Manufacturers' Championship."