Things are looking for World Rally Championship (WRC) season 2018 judging by the cars set to compete in it. We saw the first shot of the new Polo WRC a few days ago, and now in a few days we will get to see this bad boy in action, the new Citroen C3 R5. It looks pretty good. Pretty, pretty, pretty good!

Set to replace last season’s champion, the D3 R5, the new Citroen C3 R5 has been under constant testing since September. The team has put the new rally car through a battery of tough evaluations on tarmac and gravel. The test drivers Stéphane Lefebvre, Craig Breen and Yoann Bonato have already racked up over 4,000km in testing in the C3, giving it a big thumbs up after every session. Now the car is all set forits first public appearance during the Rallye du Var, the final round of the French Championship, on 23-26 November.

Citroen C3 R5 will be one of the ‘zero’ cars at the event, meaning it has a number ‘0’ on its door which indicates it is not racing competitively. It would be a good laugh if the non-FIA homologous car actually win the rally. It would make this guy, who’s not yet left the womb, pretty worried:

The VW Polo R5 GTI is shaping up to be a serious WRC contender, already trash talking the competition with its big numbers and swollen arches. What’s more important, perhaps, than who wins the races is how these rally cars will affect the market of the road-going models they are based on. Looks-wise, we have to say we’d rather have the hot hatch fruit of the C3’s loins. But performance-wise, I don’t know, it’s hard to ignore how good that Polo GTI is.