French carmaker Peugeot has ruled out a return to Formula One, insisting that its main focus is on its thriving World Rally programme.

Recently it was suggested the marque was set to link-up with Asiatech, the firm that purchased its Velizy technical centre in 2000 for its own customer engine supply programme, in a new F1 effort.

Yet Corrado Provera, the Italian in charge of the firm’s motorsport who also ran the Formula One programme when it was active in the nineties, dismissed the rumours as “silly”.

‘This is not the strategy of the company, and not in Peugeot’s culture,’ Provera was quoted as saying in the “Motorsport News” publication. ‘Look at how happy we are in rallying…rallying is in Peugeot’s culture.’

Peugeot left Formula at the end of 2000 after a hapless term with the Prost team. It had also collaborated with McLaren in 1994 and Jordan between 1995 and 1997.

Peugeot has been dominating World Rallying since being freed of its F1 commitments. In 2000, the year it pulled out of Grand Prix racing, it won both the Constructors’ and Drivers’ titles with Marcus Gronholm, and then took the Constructors’ crown again last year.