AUTOhebdo – Loeb close to the exit?

The phenomenon is recent but not really new. For around three years, Sébastien Loeb experiences a feeling of weariness in the first part of the season. His thoughts are no longer focused exclusively on WRC, a discipline where he no longer has anything to prove. There has already been the episode F1 which occupied his mind quite a bit at the end of 2009. Then the desire for a change of scenery, last year, even if it meant joining the DTM, after the “painful” episodes in Mexico and the Acropolis, when the tension with his then teammate, Sébastien Ogier, was at its peak. Now, it is Sébastien Loeb Racing, the team he created with his accomplice Dominique Heintz, which catches his attention. The only motivation that pushes him to continue in the WRC today is the pleasure he finds in driving his Citroën DS3 to the maximum of its possibilities. And to win races like in Greece, ten days ago, where his joy was real at the finish. But for him, the main thing was done in rally : namely being world champion at least once. The other titles are only a bonus for a driver who appreciates numbers and records but who gives them no priority. Being crowned for the 9th consecutive time at the end of 2012 could be enough for him. So what would be the point of continuing your career for another year, in order to win a tenth title, undoubtedly more complicated to achieve with the arrival of VW and the return of Sébastien Ogier to a WRC?

The rest of Eric Briquet's article can be read in AUTOhebdo n°1860, available in digital version or on all newsstands.