DAVID EVANS E
“Loeb is now a genuinely free agent”
ighteen-year-olds don’t scare easily. Especially not 18-year-olds who spend their working life throwing rally cars between the trees at 100mph… and their home life doing pretty much the same on a quadbike, skidoo or jet-ski, depending on the season.
But in one sentence I’d managed to frighten the life out of Kalle Rovanpera. I’d asked him if he had much to say on stage at Skoda Motorsport’s annual press conference in Prague last week. “No,” he said, cautiously. I replied that I was mildy surprised. “Why?” he said, “what have you heard? I don’t have to talk, do I?
Briefly, I was tempted to push this one further, but that would have been unkind. I put him out of his misery.
He grinned and laughed the laugh of a deeply relieved man. Boy? Man? Youngster? Teenager? Teenager.
“I don’t like that sort of thing so much,” he said. “Actually, days like today are the hardest part of the job. I prefer to drive the car.”
Seeing Rovanpera walk through the lobby of one of Prague’s fancier hotels, he absolutely had the look of a man who longed to be elsewhere. Ideally, behind the wheel of a car. Any car. Anywhere.
As you’ll read later in this issue, Skoda’s end-ofseason presser also tied in with the opening of its all-new motorsport facility in Mlada Boleslav. It’s a pretty impressive place and a clear statement of intent that the Czech firm has a long-term future in rallying, which is very, very good news.
Which brings me on to another conversation with another rally driver I had last week. This one, it’s fair to say, is at the other end of his time in the sport. With nine titles and 79 wins, there’s not much left for Sebastien Loeb to achieve in world rallying. And he’s been pretty relaxed about that. Until now.
It’s that thing about having something and not really wanting it, then not having it and really wanting it. It happens to me a lot with chocolate biscuits. When they’re in the house or the office I’m not bothered about them. But the minute there aren’t any, I would walk over hot coals for a chocolatecoated digestive and actually risk incarceration to get to a milk chocolate Hobnob. It’s the same for Loeb, except it’s rally cars he’s craving now.
I must admit, I was always fairly sure Citroen would sort him out with something. I know there was all that stuff about Sebastien Ogier not wanting part-timers back, and there was speculation about contract clauses to that effect, but still, a Seb-seb line-up for the reds in, for example, Corsica would surely be too good an opportunity to miss out on.
But it’s really not going to happen now. Loeb might actually have run his final race with Citroen – and potentially his last world championship outing. And that makes me sad. The story he provided in Salou was one of the highlights of the season and just having the world’s fastest Alsatian back where he belongs was something special. I can’t believe, now he’s a genuinely free agent for the first time in 20 years, nobody can find a home for the WRC’S very own living legend.