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  • TG chats to X-Games champ Liam Doran

    Citroen’s Rallycross driver on crashing a GT-R at 160mph and racing at Pikes Peak…

    Galleries, X Games, rally

  • James May on the Citroen DS3

    The Citroen DS was a true French goddess, so how divine (or Gallic, for that matter) is the new DS3? Le Capitain Lentement investigates...

    James May, Citroen DS3, Citroen

  • Citroen DS3R driven

    After three very fast hatches on Sunday’s Top Gear, here’s another hot challenger...

    Citroen DS3, Citroen, Galleries

  • 2010 Top Gear Awards: Small Car of the Year

    'The DS3 is the car that will lift Citroen right out of the Happy Shopper Basket of Doom'

    Galleries, Citroen DS3, Citroen

  • Citroen DS3 R3 rally car

    Citroen DS3 R3 rally car: driven

    TopGear goes rallying in the racing version of Citroen’s shark-finned hot hatch, narrowly avoids trees and large ditches…

    Citroen DS3

  • Citroen DS3 R3 rally car

    Aspiring bobble-hat brigade take note – Citroen is launching the DS3 R3 rally car at this weekend’s Ulster Rally. And it’s a relatively cheap way to get into rallying, in a motorsport-is-never-that-cheap kind of way, writes Piers Ward.

    Citroen DS3

  • Citroen DS3 R3 rally car

    It then means you can enter FIA rally events the world over, as well as more local ones like the Ulster Rally, and compete alongside the likes of Loeb and Latvala.

    Not that Seb or Jari-Matti are there when we drive the DS3 R3 on a mini-stage in Northern Ireland. Good job, given how embarrassingly slow I am. But, talentless rally driver aside, the DS3 R3 is a great car in which to learn the skills of rallying.

    Citroen DS3

  • citroen DS3 R3 rally car

    If rallying can ever sort out its feeder categories, it might make the top echelon more competitive and attract more teams and drivers. Hopefully this DS3 R3 will help those lower echelons.

    Check back next week for the video.

    Citroen DS3

  • Citroen DS3 R3 rally car

    The way the DS3 R3 really bangs through the gears, how the single paddle gear change works (towards you for up, away from you for down), the roll cage, the seats, the digi display - it all feels like it would be a natural progression to step into faster categories, and eventually into the WRC. 

    Citroen DS3

  • Citroen DS3 R3 rally car

    But it’s only on the initial part of the bend – at all the other points, you can really feel the back end moving around, and the steering is so light and fast that it’s easy to react to it. It’s great the way the DS3 seems to pivot around you. You’re at the centre of its universe.

    All this makes the Citroen feel like a proper rally car. I was lucky enough to drive Loeb’s WRC car last year, and although that feels a lot more sophisticated in the way it rides and handles, all the major touch points in the DS3 R3 and the WRC car are surprisingly similar. 

    Citroen DS3