'Sweeper' role worries Loeb

"It will all depend on what the stages are like," said the Frenchman. "In Greece, I tried to drive as quickly as possible. In certain stages, there was nothing that I could do, but there were others in which I fared better. The organisers will no doubt have re-graded the stages this year, and that worries me a little. I could well lose ground over the first leg and that's never easy for a driver.

"When you're first on the road, the conditions are more slippery and you have nobody else's lines to 'read', so there's a real risk of being caught out... You have to find the best compromise, to drive as fast as possible without making any mistakes... and sometimes you just have to sit it out patiently!"

It didn't seem to hinder Loeb too much in Greece finishing as he did in second behind Subaru's Petter Solberg, a position he'd be just as happy with this time out.

"My main objective hasn't changed and that is to stay in contention in the championship," he said. "That implies finishing on the podium. As I've already said, I will be happy with third place but, hopefully, I will be able to do even better..."

Team-mate Carlos Sainz, who won the inaugural event in Turkey last year, believes he and Citroen can repeat the feat again this year. "Without a doubt! But we must be careful not to underestimate our rivals who, like us, have improved in terms of both performance and reliability," said the Spaniard.

"What makes Turkey interesting is that it puts all the teams on an equal footing on the sporting front," he added. "This is only the championship's second visit to this country and testing here is not allowed. Citroen knows the event as well as the other teams which leads me to think that we will be in a position to fight for victory."