WRC France: Home boy, home win

WRC France: Home boy, home win

by Martijn Kösters

Loeb did what many of his fans hoped for, ending his last full-time season with his ninth, consecutive title in front of a home crowd. With the final stage of the rally through his hometown of Haguenau, it must have been like a lap of honour for Sebastien Loeb and Daniel Elena, the most succesful rally duo in history. Loeb replied: “When it’s finished, it’s an incredible moment. In Haguenau, my hometown, it was really a relief and the feeling was incredible!”

It wasn't an easy cruise through familiar surroundings for Loeb at all. Despite what you would expect from a tarmace rally the grip was scarce throughout the whole weekend. With rain and aquaplaining being the main hazards early in the rally, grip did not improve much on the last day. The straights had dried out, but corners were now full of mud after extensive corner-cutting by the crews.

After a short street stage on Thursday, Loeb quickly took the lead on the longer stages on Friday. Conditions were damp, but manageable on dry tyres. Loeb profited from the right tactic to take two soft spare tyres with him, allowing him to adjust to grip conditions, where Petter Solberg did not get the feeling for his Fiesta and was off the pace. At the end of the day all major drivers were still in the rally, with Loeb topping the sheets 13 seconds ahead of Latvala, who leads from Hirvonen.

Day two saw action on the first stage of the day, when Petter Solberg parked his car into a pole, and would be out for that day. His retirement promoted Thierry Neuville up to fourth, closely followed by Dani Sordo in the Mini. Jari-Matti Latvala meanwhile got caught out by a wet patch which still cost him 18 seconds on Loeb. Further behind Neuville, Sordo and Ostberg scrambled for fourth place, with no driver getting the upper hand yet. Behind them Evgeni Novikov found more and more pace throughout Saturday. At the end of Saturday, little had changed apart from Solberg's retirement. Loeb increased his lead to about half a minute with six shorter stages to go. Hirvonen held on to third despite a severe cold.

Would Sunday be a victory run for Sebastien Loeb? It seemed more and more like it on Saturday night, as Latvala almost accepted his second place: “I’m thinking more about preserving second than trying to win, which will be almost impossible unless Loeb makes a mistake. My car is fast enough to win the rally, but it’s the driver that has to improve.”

It certainly would not be overly easy for Loeb to take this victory, as rain struck the early stages on Sunday, Neuville profited with his second scratch of the rally as top drivers controlled their positions rather than attacked. Ostberg was the driver who seemed to struggle most with the rain, dropping from fourth to sixth: “It didn’t feel good at all, I was just too careful with a lot of standing water in the road. I have to take risks to fight for fourth but I didn’t take any risks.”. Ostberg would be handed fifth place as Dani Sordo retired without any power steering, the team decided driving without would be to dangerous.

Second loop of the day brought some excitement with an earlier than normal power stage, which saw none of the top-drivers take additional points. Ostberg came third, taking one point extra whilst Neuville and Tanak went for victory, with the Estonian eventually rewarded three points. Thierry Neuville then went on to win two more stages, but all the attention turned to Sebastien Loeb, who took win number 75, and championship number 9 of his impressive career.

His retirement cost Petter Solberg his third place in the championship, being passed by Latvala and Ostberg who finished second and fifth. Mikko Hirvonen celebrated his 8^th podium of the year by coming third while Neuville had his best weekend of the year with a fourth place. Tanak, Novikov, Atkinson, Prokop and Chardonnet complete the top ten.