LOEB “SORRY” FOR BREEN
French hero ramps up preparations for rally mexico
Sebastien Loeb has apologised to Craig Breen for costing the Irishman his seat at next month’s Rally Mexico.
The nine-time World Rally champion is tackling three rounds of this year’s series – Mexico, Corsica and Spain – when he will drive the French firm’s second C3 WRC in place of Breen. Loeb was talking to MN following his two-day Spanish test in preparation for next month’s Leon-based WRC round.
Asked about Breen’s position, Loeb said: “It must be frustrating for him. He did a really good rally in Sweden, but on the other side I don’t decide anything. Citroen propose me a few rallies, I’m sorry that I am taking his car, but it’s just like that.”
Citroen is only funding two factory cars on each WRC round this season. Abu Dhabi’s Khalid Al Qassimi will drive a C3 WRC on selected outings as a partner to the team and Mads Ostberg paid for his outing in Sweden. The decision to run a two-car team was taken by PSA chief Carlos Tavares. Tavares denied swapping Loeb for Breen, who is 16 years younger than the 78-time world rally winner, was a contravention of the firm’s lauded young driver development programme.
“Loeb is a member of our family,” Tavares told MN. “He [Breen] is out of the car for just three rallies, not six or seven.”
Loeb returns to a gravel-specification World Rally Car for the first time since 2012 early next month, and admits he’s as intrigued as anybody to find out where his pace will be.
“I don’t know if I will be in the rhythm,” he said. “I know I will have a good position on the road and that will help me on the first day, but for the rest, it’s really difficult to make any plan. It’s too long that I didn’t drive in this level of rallying: six years and I didn’t do a gravel rally. I am curious to know after the first stages how I am.”
Loeb drove the C3 for two days in Almeria, southern Spain last week, admitting he was impressed with the development of the car since his last single day of running – also in Spain but close to Lloret de Mar in September.
He told MN: “The car feels a bit easier to drive since I tested last year, the feeling for me was better and the car was easier to handle. I didn’t make any big changes with the car, I was trying to adapt the car to my driving, so there were some changes in the diffs and suspension. The car felt quite good from the start. How good? It’s difficult for me to compare because I didn’t drive another World Rally Car. But going back to the DS 3, nearly everything is better – the car was easy to use and the engine was working well.”
One of Loeb’s only concerns about his return will be working with pacenotes again – he and co-driver Daniel Elena used a very different method of route guidance during the Dakar, the event which has been the focus of their rally effort for the last three years.
Loeb said: “I think the most difficult thing will be to trust the notes and take as good notes as I had in the past. Especially I think the most difficult for me is that I didn’t do these stages for six years, but the others have done two passes of recce and two passes of rally since – that makes a big difference.”
Countering any lack of recent familiarity with the roads is Loeb’s incredible success in Mexico. In his eight starts on the season’s highestaltitude test, he scored six wins and remains unbeaten in Guanajuato since Petter Solberg won the 2005 event.
“I will try not to have some pressure on my shoulders for this rally,” said Loeb. “I have come back because I love the sensation of driving a rally car. For the [manufacturer] points, we didn’t speak really about it. Citroen chose an old driver, so they know it can be complicated! But I will do like every time, I will drive like I feel and we will see where we are.
“The objective is to have fun. First of all, that’s why we decided to come back; we knew it would be difficult to come back after six years without rallies and six years without being in Mexico. I really don’t know what I can expect. The feeling was quite good in the test and I’m looking forward to being there.”