EXTRA WRC ROUNDS UNLIKELY FOR LOEB
French legend not expected to return to top-flight rallying
A possible Sebastien Loeb return to the World Rally Championship looks dead in the water for next season after Citroen team principal Pierre Budar admitted he’s not keen on another part-time return from the Alsace star.
Nine-time champion Loeb was the talk of the service park when he returned to the WRC for Mexico and Corsica, showing the speed needed to win both events – despite not competing regularly at the sport’s highest level since 2012.
Citroen is keen to try and talk Loeb back into a full-time return to the WRC next year, but the driver is standing firm in his decision to avoid a 14-round schedule.
MN also understands Loeb has declined the opportunity to compete in Germany, confirming that he will be on holiday. That means October’s confirmed Rally Spain outing could be his last ever appearance in a works Citroen.
Asked about the chances of repeating this year’s partprogramme, Citroen team principal Budar said: “Something I don’t want to reproduce is to have him [for] one rally. He has stopped rallying because of something, so I don’t see how we can restart knowing he has stopped because of some reasons – it was boring him or I don’t know what.
“It’s a good idea to have Seb for the full season, but I don’t think it is a good thing to have some drivers for some rallies because we need to build a consistent organisation.”
Loeb’s position throughout this season is that he remains committed to Peugeot’s World Rallycross effort. Citroen’s PSA partner will reveal an updated 208 WRX in the summer, with Loeb’s contract understood to extend into next season.
Loeb, who scored his first rallycross win in more than a year in Belgium last weekend, quit rallying after 12 years of competition in search of something less demanding of his time. After two years in the World Touring Car Championship, he settled on a combined Dakar and World RX effort with Peugeot. For him, nothing has changed.
Earlier this year, Loeb said: “I am doing the rallycross with Peugeot and I cannot do everything. When I retired from the full [WRC] championship I know the reason why and that has not changed. Now I come, I drive and it’s cool, but to do all the championship, I don’t know… it’s not the plan.”
Being forced to bench Craig Breen for Loeb was a cause of significant frustration for Budar, who wanted to build the Irishman’s confidence and speed further after he finished Rally Sweden in second place. The decision to go ahead with Loeb’s deal was taken by his predecessor at Citroen, Yves Matton. Loeb admitted the initial deal wasn’t completely clear, adding: “I thought it would maybe be a Red Bull car or a car run by my own team, it was never my intention to take Craig’s car.”
Despite only having started two of the season’s five rallies, Loeb is the Citroen driver with the most fastest stage times and the driver who has led the most stages for the French firm.
Budar is, however, willing to trade one-off performances from the sport’s most successful driver ever in favour of building consistency into the future.
Loeb’s team-mate in Mexico and Corsica, Kris Meeke, is one of the Citroen employees campaigning hardest for him to remain. He said: “The effect Seb’s had on the team has been pretty incredible. We’ve all been able to feed off the energy he’s come in with – me especially. Right from the start the feeling has been strong, in fact from the test we did in Spain before Mexico. After that we were able to work through the set-up and we were both going in the same direction. It’s been so positive.
“I’ve said all along that I want him back in the team and this event just reinforces that. If I had the chance to do a full season with him then I just know I would learn so much.” Additional reporting by Federico Faturos