Sébastien Loeb

Encyclopedia : S : SB : SBA : Sébastien Loeb

Sébastien Loeb (born February 26, 1974) is a French rally driver, winner, with co-driver Daniel Elena, of the World Rally Driver's Championship title in 2004 and 2005, and of a record ten World Rallies in 2005. Together with Colin McRae, Loeb is the second most successful WRC driver of all time, behind Carlos Sainz (26).

Debuts

2002 would be Loeb's first full-season with Citroën. He won the Rally Germany, the first event of his flourishing career, although on road he also won the season-opening Rally Monte Carlo. His victory was taken away by a controversial time penalty after the last stage, which gave victory to second placed Tommi Mäkinen. In 2003, Loeb won three WRC events before losing to Petter Solberg in Wales Rally Great Britain and also losing the championship to Solberg by just one point.

Along with Petter Solberg and Markko Märtin, Loeb is one of the pioneers of the new style of rally driving, which quickly superseded the aggressive sliding style formerly employed by drivers like Colin McRae, Tommi Mäkinen and Richard Burns. Those new breed of rally drivers fully utilize the active differential technology and depend on sophisticated suspension systems to trace corners with minimal tailslide, often aggressively cutting the inside of the corner.

World champion (2004)

In 2004, Loeb dominated the WRC-scene in a similar way to the Michael Schumacher domination of Formula One from 2000 to 2004, by winning six events and earning many podium finishes in other events to securely give him the driver's title. He was also responsible for Citroën's second manufacturer's title in a row.

Originally known as a tarmac specialist, 2004 was the year he proved the world he could do it all. He won the Uddeholm Swedish Rally, becoming the first non-Scandinavian to win the event. He also won many gravel and tarmac rallies such as Telstra Rally Australia and Rallye Automobile Monte Carlo . Loeb's six WRC-victories tied the record with fellow Frenchman Didier Auriol, who won six events in 1990.

A record season (2005)

In 2005, with victory in the 9th round (Argentinian Rally), Loeb became the first to win six consecutive rallies, and the first to win seven in a season, having already won the opening Rallye Automobile Monte Carlo . He was in a position to clinch the title at Wales Rally Great Britain, but after it was announced that the last two stages of the rally would be abandoned due to the death of Michael Park in an accident on stage 15, Loeb deliberately incurred a two minute penalty to drop him to third place and avoid retaining his title in such circumstances.

He won all twelve legs in the 2005 Rallye de France, another record, the first time a driver wins all the legs of a WRC rally. This was his ninth victory of the year, and victory on Rally Catalunya in Spain made his number of 2005 victories 10, beating his (and Didier Auriol's) own record of six wins in a season.

In 2005, he also participated in Le Mans in the team of the Pescarolo n° 17. Reportedly Loeb did much of his preparation for the race by running practice laps around the circuit in the Sony PlayStation 2 video game Gran Turismo 4 aboard a private jet. The car was plagued by incidents, but Loeb proved to be able to drive fast for his first race on a closed track.

Finally, he also won the individual title Champion of Champions in the 2005 Race of Champions.

Le Patron (2006)

In the meantime, a 'gap year' beckoned in the privateer ranks, namely with Kronos Citroën. Despite driving a car at the end of its potential, he showed that he was still Le Patron (the Boss), by dominating the first half of the season.

In order to score on the first round in Monte Carlo, however, he was initially forced to activate the SupeRally rules for retiring competitors, having spun off the road on Leg 1. Although he did manage to claw back 2nd place in the Principality, it was the first time he had ever been beaten to the finish (namely by fellow double-time champion Marcus Grönholm) on these roads in the Xsara WRC. This outcome was mirrored on the following month's Swedish Rally, with Grönholm again the man to whom Loeb was forced to give best, hence placing the duo in an early runaway 1-2 position in the points standings. But the Frenchman's bridesmaid status was not to last, and racking up a triumph on the ensuing Corona Rally Mexico - the first of five on the trot to date this season - propelled him back into a championship lead he is yet to lose. Those five consecutive victories have also edged him close to Carlos Sainz's record number of 26 individual rally victories, compared to Loeb's present 25.

Loeb finished second overall in the 2006 24 Hours of Le Mans in a Pescarolo-Judd, between the two Diesel-powered Audi R10.

2007

WRC Victories (25)

-->

-->

-->

1.

# 10

Germany

Citroën Xsara

1.	# 1	Monaco	Citroën Xsara
2.	# 8	Germany	Citroën Xsara
3.	# 11	Italy	Citroën Xsara

1.	# 1		Monaco	Citroën Xsara
2.	# 2		Sweden	Citroën Xsara
3.	# 5		Cyprus	Citroën Xsara
4.	# 7		Turkey	Citroën Xsara
5.	# 10		Germany	Citroën Xsara
6.	# 16		Australia	Citroën Xsara

1.	# 1	Monaco	Citroën Xsara
2.	# 4	New Zealand	Citroën Xsara
3.	# 5	Italy	Citroën Xsara
4.	# 6	Cyprus	Citroën Xsara
5.	# 7	Turkey	Citroën Xsara
6.	# 8	Greece	Citroën Xsara
7.	# 9	Argentina	Citroën Xsara
8.	# 11	Germany	Citroën Xsara
9.	# 14	France	Citroën Xsara
10.	# 15	Spain	Citroën Xsara

1.	# 3	Mexico	Citroën Xsara
2.	# 4	Spain	Citroën Xsara
3.	# 5	France	Citroën Xsara
4.	# 6	Argentina	Citroën Xsara
5.	# 7	Italy	Citroën Xsara

SUCK

External links

• [Official web site]
• [News release - Citroën back in 2007]
• [Photo: Loeb in Kronos Citroën Total Xsara, Monte Carlo, 2006]

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.