HRT and Caterham test driver Ma Qing Hua is to join Citroen Racing's World Touring Car Championship team.

The Chinese driver will join Sebastien Loeb, Yvan Muller and Jose-Maria Lopez as steps up its international expansion.

Ma, who has competed in, amongst others, Italian Formula 3000, British Formula Three and A1 Grand Prix, became the first Chinese driver to take part in a Grand Prix weekend when he replaced Narain Karthikeyan in FP1 at Monza in 2012. In total he drove five FP1 sessions for HRT in 2012 and one, in China, for Caterham in 2013.

"In 2013, China became our number-one market in terms of vehicles manufactured," explained Arnaud de Lamothe, Citroen’s Director of Communications, Marketing and Sport. "We achieved 26% growth in 2013, outperforming the market as a whole, which grew by 19%." Orders for the C-Elysee, which is produced at our Wuhan plant, have already exceeded our objectives. For 2014, our ambition is to sell more than 100,000 units of this model on the Chinese market. For all these reasons, and with the support of the joint venture Dongfeng Citroen, we wanted to have a Chinese driver competing in one of our C-Elysee WTCCs."

Citroen Racing spent several months testing a number of potential candidates, before selecting Ma Qing Hua. The 26-year-old has also taken part in the China Touring Car Championship. After an incomplete programme in 2010, he won the CTCC 1600cc class the following season. This experience enabled him to prove his potential in the C-Elysee WTCC.

"We chose Ma Qing Hua not just for his nationality, but also for his performances," said Yves Matton, Managing Director of Citroen Racing. "He made a positive impression on us during various tests in the C-Elysee WTCC. We won’t be able to enter four cars in every round of the championship in this first season, but we’ve managed to put together a coherent programme. Ma will compete in the last two European rounds - Moscow and Spa-Francorchamps - before lining up for his two home meetings, in Shanghai and Macao. The fifth race in his programme will be determined at a later date."

"It is a great honour to have been chosen by Citroen Racing for this ambitious programme," added Ma. "I really enjoyed working with the team during the test sessions I was invited to take part in. I am really excited about the opportunity to race for a manufacturer with such a winning record and I will do my best to help Citroen to keep winning! It would, of course, be particularly special for me to have a good result in Macau and my hometown of Shanghai. But for now, I’m just looking forward to getting back behind the wheel of the C-Elysee WTCC."

His programme for 2014 includes the Moscow, Spa-Francorchamps, Shanghai and Macao meetings. He will also take part in a fifth race, which has yet to be determined.