Sebastien Loeb

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

5-time consecutive World Rally champion.

First man ever to do it, and now the greatest ever champion in his sport.

Worthy of some OTF mention (well, at least a bloody thread) as the British media will relegate his achievement to an inside column inch given Hamilton's triumph today.

[ursus arctos]

Sebastien Loeb

A genuine all time great, and a very down to earth guy.

He deserves more press in France, let alone the UK.

[Gangster Octopus]

Sebastien Loeb

Sadly rallying appears to have vanished from terrestrial telly.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Sebastien Loeb

Yep, the C4 coverage is no more, replaced by a more or less weekly programme on........Dave. Of all places.

Minor claim to fame - I used to frequently bump into Malcolm Wilson when buying my lunchtime sandwich. Fascinating stuff, I know.

[Third rate Leszno]

Sebastien Loeb

Five successive titles is a staggering achievement, but it has to be said that the level of competition hasn't been of the standard that some previous champions had to contend with. With only Gronholm, Solberg (when not hampered by the shit S12) and latterly Hirvonen (on certain gravel events only) able to offer any sort of serious challenge over those 5 seasons, it's hard to know where to place Loeb in the rallying top 10.

Will be interesting to see how the newly crowned Junior champion (and Loeb protege) Sebastien Ogier goes in his first run in a C4 WRC on Rally GB in a few weeks. Along with Latvala he looks the best possibility for a future star.

[evilC]

Sebastien Loeb

bewaldeth wrote:

Five successive titles is a staggering achievement, but it has to be said that the level of competition hasn't been of the standard that some previous champions had to contend with. With only Gronholm, Solberg (when not hampered by the shit S12) and latterly Hirvonen (on certain gravel events only) able to offer any sort of serious challenge over those 5 seasons, it's hard to know where to place Loeb in the rallying top 10.

Will be interesting to see how the newly crowned Junior champion (and Loeb protege) Sebastien Ogier goes in his first run in a C4 WRC on Rally GB in a few weeks. Along with Latvala he looks the best possibility for a future star.

Is Ogier French as well? If so, is this part of some big French push to develop talent in recent times? Having said that, there's always been one or two French drivers in WRC at most times, haven't there.

Is it just my imagination, or has there always been a slightly higher proportion of French drivers on the 'Paris-Dakar scene'?

[Third rate Leszno]

Sebastien Loeb

evilC wrote:

Is Ogier French as well? If so, is this part of some big French push to develop talent in recent times? Having said that, there's always been one or two French drivers in WRC at most times, haven't there.

Yup. The FFSA (their equivalent of the RAC MSA) have a programme of funding young drivers, Loeb was also a beneficiary. The MSA have been criticised for not doing the same, but their argument has always been that it's better to equip a number of drivers (and indeed, co-drivers) with the skills needed to progress to WRC level, rather than funding them directly (with competition licence holders' money).

Accordingly we have an MSA Elite programme, run by Robert Reid (former co-driver to the late Richard Burns) which gives the chosen crews training in media, sponsorship, sports science, marketing and rally specific skills - but doesn't give them the financial leg up to get into a "Manufacturer 2" WRC team (e.g. Stobart Ford).

End result - we have talented drivers like Guy Wilkes and Kris Meeke tooling around in underfunded hire cars or doing domestic rallies when we all know they've the speed to be finishing top 5 in the WRC.

[evilC]

Sebastien Loeb

Wow! Excellent insight, there, Bewaldeth.

Are you involved in motor racing at all, then?

(edit: Ooops! Wrong motorsport thread! I'm taking the snipped bit over to the F1 thread.)

[Third rate Leszno]

Sebastien Loeb

Not in any professional capacity, just been a motorsport fan (rallying in particular) since I was a small boy and used to watch the old RAC Rally as it passed through the area.

In the unlikely event that OTF had a vacancy for a rallying anorak, I might just be able to fill the void.....

[VTTBoscombe]

Sebastien Loeb

Old Seb is from these parts, and even in t'Alsace, he isn't mentioned alot. I heard his name mentioned more in Finland, when on business trips, than here.

So local radio station this morning wanted to boost him up after these 5 consecutive titles.

So in a phone in this morning on wonderful BleuAlsace, it seemd to be split between fans,"Credit to the Alsace nation types" and those saying, "piss off , you money centric fondue muncher".
M Loeb, you see long ago forsook this land, and is now resident en Suisse to avoid all those horrid French taxes.

But it seems he used to be a high level junior gymnist - and I must admit an all round nice guy.

[Gangster Octopus]

Sebastien Loeb

'Course, when I were a lad, rallying was non-gender specific.

[Third rate Leszno]

Sebastien Loeb

A lovely story about Pat Moss-Carlsson which I've stolen from elsewhere....

Den Green, long time senior rally mechanic with Abingdon, told of the time he was setting up a service point on top of a freezing Col on the Monte one night. A smartly and warmly dressed couple with two children, ditto, came up. The father politely asked, "in very posh English tones", if this was where Pat Moss-Carlsson would be arriving. When this was confirmed he added that she was the children's heroine and they had their autograph books all ready.

Some 20 minutes later the big Healey rumbled sideways to a halt on the snow and Pat, despite her size, positively ejected from the driver's seat. "Her very loud comments about us, the brakes and the tyres, would have made a drill sergeant blush" said Den. "Over my shoulder I noticed the smart little family retreating to the snow banks, never to be seen again."

[dotmund]

Sebastien Loeb

I've never felt able to get overly excited about the Loeb era. He's clearly the class of the field, but it's also coincided with a paucity of quality competition in the series.

Of course, this is not his fault, and all you can do is beat what's in front of you. I fear his historical legacy will suffer for it, though, in a similar way that Michael Schumacher's did for years, him being the first dominant Formula 1 driver after the Senna-Prost-Piquet-Mansell showdown of the 1980s.

[loppy]

Sebastien Loeb

I think quite a lot of Britain, myself included, became sadly distant from rallying as Seb Loeb was supposed to be challenged by Richard Burns.

[evilC]

Sebastien Loeb

I think that a few teams dropped out near the start of Loeb's peak (was it Mitsubishi, Peugeot and ...?) so with the existing teams limited to only two (points-scoring) drivers per team, there has been less opportunity for up-and-coming drivers to get drives with good teams. Thus, competition has been slightly less than it otherwise might. Mitsubishi are back, obviously, but after their break, they're not at the level they once were.

The death of Burns didn't help, but I don't think he was in Loeb's class really. He was more of a Coulthard type, I think.

Solberg has been the disappointment, for me. He's never been the same, since his championship win. He also has to be the unluckiest man in rallying, with all the trouble he has in the Subarus, but he doesn't help his cause by overcooking it whenever the Subaru seems to be trouble-free. I'd love to see him put in one more good season, personally.

What's Gronholm up to now? Is he off on the Dakar? Talking of which - any news about that race? Will it be going ahead, this year?

[Third rate Leszno]

Sebastien Loeb

Gronholm has enjoyed most of the year off, working on his family farm, opening a shopping centre complex in his home town and doing corporate days for Ford (he's appeared in the UK at least once doing demo runs in the Focus). He's continually being linked with 'guest' WRC appearances to back up Mikko.

In my view, Burns was more of a Didier Auriol type of driver - when the car was right, he was the equal of anyone, but if he couldn't get it right, he didn't seem to be able to drive round problems the way some of his competitors did. He was never comfortable in the 206WRC and it's a big unanswered question as to whether he'd have gone on to win more World titles if he'd been saddled with the 'whale' 306cc (that even Gronholm struggled with), or just drifted away like so many other talented drivers who find themselves squeezed out of a competitive seat.

Solberg seems to have got himself into a bad place, mentally, after his struggles with the recalcitrant S12B. There are signs that he might be rediscovering his joie de vivre, but he became so enmeshed in the problems of the last car that it'll only take a few more false dawns with the new one and you suspect he'll disappear into Atkinson's shadow. A real shame, because he's had two completely wasted years when he should have been mixing it with Loeb and Gronholm and Hirvonen.

Dakar has been moved to South America for next year, I think - though there was talk about a rival organisation to TSO being set up to run a raid-type event in north africa.

By the way - if any of you are nostalgic old buggers like me, the upcoming Roger Albert Clark Rally (14-17 November) is the place to go for your fix of 70s style rally action - three (and a bit) days of forest rallying in two wheel drive cars (mostly Escorts, but also Lotus Cortinas, Talbot Sunbeams, Saab 96, Lancia Stratos) running through Yorkshire, SW Scotland and the Borders, Cumbria and Kielder.

[evilC]

Sebastien Loeb

Yeah, I went and looked the Dakar up - it's in Argentina & Chile this year:

The Dakar.

While I think it's a little strange, it's going to be interesting at the very least. Now, if only there was some terrestrial coverage of it, somewhere! I miss my old cable set-up - watching the Dakar was one of the sporting highlights of my year. :-(

[kugelrund]

Sebastien Loeb

Can I roll out my minor claim to fame, then?

I once interviewed Ari Vatanen as I sat in the co-driver's seat, as he went round his rally circuit in Finland. ("Not quite full attack - fun attack." )

I was sufficiently calm and collected to win his approval and I have a certificate upstairs on which he's written "You are already half-Karelian and high on my list of co-drivers."

That film of him on Pike's Peak never fails to set the hairs on the back of my neck on end.

[evilC]

Sebastien Loeb

Wow! Nice One, Bafflin'.

Bewaldeth: Given people like Nobuhiro Tajima's performances on Pikes Peak and Hiroshi Masuoka on the Dakar, why aren't there more Japanese drivers in WRC? Does Japan have its own series that keeps all their good drivers over there, or something?

[Third rate Leszno]

Sebastien Loeb

Very jealous with that one, Bafflin. I've met Ari once and he's one of the nicest, most down to earth people you could ever hope to meet. In my view he's the man who should replace Max Mosley.....

The whole Japanese driver thing is a bit of a conundrum - in F1 you have drivers like Takuma Sato who look the absolute bollocks in the junior formulae but never quite translate that performance into F1 success - in rallying it is similar except that even less of them seem to venture into Europe.

There are quick drivers like Katsu Taguchi and Hiroshi Yanigasawa who are leading contenders in the Asia Pacific Rally series, as well as production class perennials like Fumio Nutahara and former Production World Champion Toshi Arai. Arai is probably the most successful but he looked singularly unimpressive in his few WRC outings, probably about the pace of someone like Matt Wilson or Federico Viilagra.

It's a strange one, given how strong a culture of motorsport and car tuning that they have over there.