Sébastien Loeb: “We had a great special, clean, without mistakes”

He's been waiting for this since 2017! Sébastien Loeb had never made such a start Rally from Morocco for 8 years, when he was a pilot Peugeot Sport and that his co-driver was Daniel Elena. The Alsatian, driving the Dacia Sandrider and now navigated by Édouard Boulanger, won the first stage of the final of the World Rally-Raid Championship on Tuesday, October 13 (W2RC) drawn between Fez and Erfoud. 

 

See this post on Instagram

 

A publication shared by AUTOhebdo (@autohebdo.mag)

"It means I'm getting younger, laughs Sébastien Loeb when we reveal this statistic to him. It's true that often in Morocco, my rallies didn't start very well. This isn't the case, so I hope to continue like that."

The nine-time world rally champion (WRC) takes stock of a clear day, he who started from 14th place. "We had a great, clean, error-free special. There were no punctures to report, nor any navigation errors. We rode at a consistent pace from start to finish. We lost a bit of time in the dust because we had to overtake three or four cars that had started ahead of us. Other than that, it was a great day."

Leading the Rally of Morocco with a 27-second lead over Mattias Ekström-Emil Bergkvist (Ford), Sébastien Loeb is aware of the difficulty of the task ahead. "Tomorrow, we have to open up. There aren't many options; we'll have to stay focused on navigation. For the rest, we'll do as usual. It's true that when we open up, we often lose time to our rivals. That's how it is in rally-raids. It's the price you pay to win a stage. It's not certain that we'll keep the lead tomorrow." (Tuesday), opening will be penalizing." Four special stages are still to be completed in this event, with passages in the dunes of Merzouga.

ALSO READ > Rally of Morocco, Stage 1 – Sébastien Loeb and Édouard Boulanger first leaders