Sébastien Loeb did himself no harm in the age old ‘who’s the greatest World Rally Championship driver of all time’ debate when he sensationally scored an 80th career victory – and his first not in a Citroën – on this year’s Monte Carlo Rally.
Nobody expected it. Loeb didn’t even expect it. But yet ‘Le Maestro’ showed the young pups the way with a masterful performance that had the entire WRC fraternity in raptures. Ten years on from his retirement from rallying, no less.
Loeb is back for Portugal and the bar has therefore been raised (if that’s even possible with Loeb), raising expectations with it. The watching world awaits another Loeb victory challenge.
Nothing is impossible in the WRC – Loeb quite emphatically proved that four months ago – but for those expecting, or hoping, for an 81st Loeb WRC win, here’s why you may end up being disappointed:
Road position
The most obvious handicap Loeb has heading into Rally Portugal is his road position. It’s by no means the worst – first on the road Kalle Rovanperä would trade in a heartbeat – but fourth onto nine tests of the 21-stage rally won’t boost Loeb’s cause.
Loeb could perhaps feel frustrated by the situation. Having missed both Sweden and Croatia, the nine-time champion wouldn’t have expected to still be up in fourth place in the championship but that’s the reality of it given the difficult start suffered by many championship favorites.
Fourth shouldn’t make it impossible for Loeb to make an impression, but his best chance would’ve been starting at the back of the pack like he so often has on his fleeting WRC appearances of late.
Experience deficit
Nobody can call themselves a veteran at driving a Rally1 car yet given we’re just three rounds into the new car’s tenure at the top of the WRC.
But missing out on 66% of the mileage the majority of his rivals have accumulated can’t be considered a good thing for Loeb – particularly when you consider on Monte, although he’d done less testing than some others, he was effectively competing on an even keel.
And despite being a twice winner of Rally Portugal in the past, Loeb has only ever contested the Matosinhos-based event in the north of the country once, back in 2019. It’s not a rally Loeb will remember fondly either as first his Hyundai suffered with fuel pressure problems and then he broke his rear suspension on the powerstage.
Monte affinity
In contrast, Monte Carlo has always been a Loeb event. After all, his success this year equaled the record on the event (eight) and puts Loeb at the top of the pile in terms of WRC Monte victories too.
His sub-par performance in 2020 for Hyundai tricked us all into thinking that Loeb had maybe lost his touch, but that clearly was not the case. On a rally where he has always excelled, it’s no surprise that Loeb was so competitive.
The same can’t necessarily be said about Portugal.
Motivation
It would be utterly remiss to suggest that Loeb isn’t fired up to achieve a strong result this week, but is his motivation quite as high as it was ahead of the Monte Carlo Rally?
Only he will know the true answer to that, but there’s an argument to suggest it won’t be. As mentioned above, Loeb looked a shadow of his former self on the 2020 Monte and it led him to question his own abilities. Was he the driver he still was?
This year’s Monte gave him the chance to answer those self doubts, and mercifully it transpired that the i20 Coupe WRC just didn’t work for him. Strapped into a Puma Rally1, Loeb was immediately at home.
It could be then that Rally Portugal is more about pure enjoyment than it is about proving a point now that Loeb knows he very much still has it.
Ogier
He so nearly did it on round one, but Loeb’s old contemporary Sébastien Ogier is perhaps the biggest obstacle in his path to a Rally Portugal win.
Ogier had the Monte as good as won before a penultimate stage puncture dumped him to second and left him with a mountain to climb on the powerstage – which he did come super close to overcoming.
Loeb took a deserved victory, but Ogier looked marginally the faster driver on raw pace. That situation should only be amplified this week with Ogier a further four cars back in the running order than Loeb and therefore facing a cleaner road.
And talk about motivation – after being bested by Loeb on the Monte, Ogier has a score to settle. There’s also the dangling fruit of a record-breaking Portuguese win to shoot for.
A Sébastien could well be standing on the top of the podium on Sunday, but the odds favor Ogier over Loeb.
