French driver Sebastien Loeb poised to rally for 5th world championship title in France
January 23, 2008
Four-time world champion Sebastien Loeb of France still isn’t satisfied. The Frenchman is all fired up for the first round of the World Rally Championship (WRC) in Monte Carlo on January 24, where he will team up again with fellow champion Daniel Elena in their Citroën C4 WRC automobile. If the “flying Alsatian” Loeb is victorious again this year, it would make him the first rally driver in history with five championship titles.
If the record is on the Frenchman’s mind, it still seems to take a back seat to the fun of rally racing.
“I’m obviously dreaming of a white Monte Carlo, with real wintry conditions,” smiles Sebastien Loeb. “The route focuses on three different regions of France, so the stages will be very varied. Thursday evening’s tests are wide, fast and smooth. Those in the Ardèche are more technical, narrower and sometimes bumpy. Last year’s conditions were dry, but it should be fun if we get snow and ice this time!”
Loeb says he is delighted that the Col du Turini and some other classic stages in the southeast corner of France are back. However, he added, “the challenge racing the final day’s four stages with the same tires could be tricky.”
This year, all the cars will be fitted moreover identical tires provided by a single manufacturer, Pirelli, while the choice of tire type for each rally stage is up to the drivers. The conditions encountered on the Monte Carlo Rally have always been challenging. In a single stage, it is par for the course to come across portions of clear asphalt and other parts that are covered in ice and/or snow, so tires often play a decisive role.
Automobiles were not Sebastien Loeb’s first love. Born in 1974, Loeb began his career in sports as a gymnast. He became an official Citroën driver in 2001, winning the French Rally Championship and the Super 1600 World Rally Championship. The 2002 season began with a victory at Monte Carlo, but that first WRC win was later taken from him. Later in the season, Loeb took his revenge and won his first official WRC victory in Germany. The French driver narrowly missed becoming World Champion in 2003 when Peter Solberg won by a single point in the last event, but Sebastien Loeb impressed the world with three victories: Monte Carlo, Deutschland and Sanremo. Loeb dominated the 2004 championship with victories in Monte Carlo, Sweden, Cyprus, Turkey, Germany and Australia. In 2005, the Frenchman did even better, winning ten races out of 16 events. Almost unbeatable on every road surface, Loeb won a second consecutive drivers’ championship title. World Rally championships in 2006 and 2007, where Loeb produced an overall time of 3 hours, 1 minute, 39.2 seconds, made Sebastien Loeb only the third driver to win four world titles, along with Finnish duo Juha Kankkunen and Tommi Makinen. Now in 2008, the French driver is set to stand alone and make auto racing history.
The rally champion is characteristically modest at the starting line.
As is often the case at the start of a new season, there are a lot of unknown factors,” explains Loeb. “Our aim is to try to win and get the year off to a positive start.”
In the course of its long history, the Monte Carlo Rally has emerged as the world’s most famous rally. Should Sebastien Loeb and Daniel Elena succeed in adding a fifth Monte Carlo victory to their record, they will become the most successful crew in the winter classic’s history.
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