RallyInterview: Sébastien Loeb:Sébastien Loeb sees his success as a combination of good cars, his confidence in his cars and his method of driving as he feels, writes Conor Twomey
Sébastien Loeb is the most successful rally driver of all time, with more wins to his name than Carlos Sainz and Colin McRae even at this early stage in his career, not to mention three consecutive world championships.
When I meet him at the Cork 20 International Rally I'm curious to know what he himself attributes his phenomenal success to. "Difficult to say," he says. "The difference compared to other drivers is, maybe, that I always had a good car. I started in 2002 in the WRC and I had a really competitive car the first year, so I could always fight for the victory.
"Other drivers like Carlos had sometimes a very good team and other times maybe not so good cars. You [ also] have to have confidence in your notes, to have a good feeling with the car. I drive like I feel. I never really learned to drive. I started driving when I was 22 (which is very late compared to most professional drivers) because I had no money to start before."
"So how did you get your break?" I ask.
"I did something in France called 'Rallye Jeunes' (Peugeot organised races where amateur drivers could race around cones in a car park setting the fastest times) and there was something like 10,000 and 15,000 people driving in this and I was the fastest.
"I did it for two years and each time I was the fastest," he says.
His speed caught the eye of Dominique Heintz and Rémi Mammosser who invited Sébastien to join their "Ambition Sport Auto" team, eventually finding him a Peugeot 106 Rallye with which he could contest some regional races.
His success with the 106 eventually earned him a drive in the Citroën Saxo kit car at which point Citroën noticed him and signed him up as a WRC drive. He's now chasing down his fourth consecutive title but it won't be as easy as last year, where Loeb could sit out the last four rounds of the championship with a broken arm and still take the world title.
"We're here [at the Cork 20 Rally] to try to find a good set up for the Irish WRC rally [in November], especially because this year for me the championship is really close and we need to do everything we can to take some points from Marcus [ Gronholm]. When we came to Donegal at the end of the rally I was not completely satisfied with the car settings. It was not perfect so we worked on the suspension and some different things and now we'll try the solution."
It seems as if the Irish roads are creating problems for the WRC teams as Ford is also back with its WRC cars to tweak its set up.
"Yes, Ireland's a bit different," says Loeb. "Some stages are interesting because there are more bumps in Ireland than other rallies, so we are here to work a bit on the suspension settings. It is completely different to what we are used to - very different from Corsica and Monaco. [ In Ireland] you have really fast but really narrow, bumpy roads."
It doesn't help that he's got an all new car this year and is still working out the kinks. "Yeah, for sure, it's different. A lot of parts of the car are the same as the Citroën Xsara (last year's car), but the size of the car and . . . the weight balance of the car is different, so we work hard to make it as good as the Xsara.
"The Xsara really was a good size for a WRC car - it had good agility, it's not too big, not too high, well balanced, a really good base for a rally car. Citroën worked a lot on this car - maybe six or seven years of development, so by the end it really was a perfect car. So, it was not easy to make the C4 immediately as good, but I think now we are getting there," he explains.
His main rival, Marcus Gronholm, is different this year too.
"He has changed his strategy a bit also. Before he wanted to win [above all else], so he pushed hard as possible. Now sometimes he accepts that I can beat him, but he's happy to be second and he scores a lot of championship points that way, which makes it much more difficult for me."
All of which sets the stage for a thrilling end of season and a championship which could be decided here in Ireland.
"The problem now is that I have to win every rally," explains Loeb, but having watched him take 10 rounds of the 2005 season (including six in a row) I certainly wouldn't bet against him pulling it off.