Sébastien Loeb has confirmed that currently he has no plans to compete on any rounds of the 2023 World Rally Championship.
The nine-time world champion contested four rounds of the WRC in an M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1 through 2022, winning the season-opening Monte Carlo Rally.
The Frenchman has already confirmed to DirtFish that he won’t defend that victory in the French Alps and right now there’s nothing in his diary to place him back in a Puma alongside fellow world champion Ott Tänak.
“At the moment, nothing,” said Loeb.
“We will speak together to see if there is something to do, but at the moment there is no plan.
“I could do a few events if it is possible, but I have no precise project at the moment.
“Now we will do the Dakar and we will speak about this in the future.”
Twelve months ago, Loeb made a dream debut with M-Sport, flying to Monaco directly from finishing second at Dakar with Prodrive and won the Monte Carlo Rally less than a week later.
The 2022 Dakar finished on a Friday, allowing Loeb to fly to his Geneva home on Saturday, spend a night in his own bed before heading further west to the Alps for a Sunday test before the recce began on Monday.
Talking about this month’s Dakar, Loeb said the logistics of doing both the Dakar and the Monte this time weren’t straightforward.
“It is even more complicated than in last year. [In 2022] there was one day between the end of the Dakar and the recce,” he said.
“This year the Dakar is finishing on Sunday and the recce is on Monday morning so it’s even more tight. And I didn’t really have any proposition to do it anyway.”
M-Sport Ford will, therefore, field a completely different round one line-up in 2023 than it did 12 months earlier.
New signing Tänak joins from Hyundai while the season-opener wasn’t one of Pierre-Louis Loubet’s seven rallies last year. Loubet will partner Tänak on all 13 events this season.
Adrien Fourmaux will compete in an M-Sport Ford, running a Fiesta Rally2 rather than a Puma Rally1 Hybrid, and Gus Greensmith has recently announced his split from the team.
Privateer Jourdan Serderidis will drive a third Puma on round one.
