Sébastien Loeb

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Sébastien Loeb (born February 26, 1974) is a French rally driver, winner of the World Rally Driver's Championship title in 2004 and 2005, and of a record ten World Rallies in 2005.

1 Debuts
2 World champion (2004)
3 A record season (2005)
4 2006-2007
5 WRC Victories (23)
6 External links

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Debuts

Loeb was born in Haguenau. He grew up wanting to become a gymnast/acrobat, but instead turned his interests to racing as an adult. In 1998, he started entering events in the French Citroën Saxo Trophy series, winning the title in 1999. Guy Frequelin, Citroën Sport's Team Principal, would serve as Loeb's mentor as he entered the Junior World Rally Championship, which he conquered in 2001. During this time, he also participated in various World Rally Championship events in the Citroën Xsara.

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with Petter Solberg and Markko Märtin, Loeb is one of the pioneers of the new style of rally driving, which quickly superseded the aggressive sliding style formerly employed by drivers like Colin McRae, Tommi Mäkinen and Richard Burns.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.

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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.

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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.

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2006-2007

Citroën's parent company, PSA Peugeot Citroën, pulled both companies out of the WRC at the end of 2005, but Citroën plans to come back in 2007 with the Citroën C4 WRC, the development of which Loeb will be closely allied to. He plans to reacquaint himself with the Versailles-based factory squad in 2007.

In the meantime, a 'gap year' beckoned in the privateer ranks, namely with Kronos Citroën. He clawed back 2nd place in the Monte Carlo Rally - the first race of the 2006 season - after spinning off in Leg 1, the first time he had ever been beaten to the finish by a competitor - namely fellow double-time champion Marcus Grönholm - on the road in such machinery. 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.

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WRC Victories (23)

Image:Citroën-Xsara-T4-WRC-'03.jpg

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2002 (1)

# 10

Germany

Citroën Xsara

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2003 (3)

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

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2004 (6)

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

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2005 (10)

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