On this week #9: The greatest of all time?
The question isn't really whether or not Sébastien Loeb – who celebrates his 50th birthday this year– is the greatest driver that rallying has ever seen. His nine world titles (10 if you count his 2001 Junior world rally championship) answer that succinctly.
It's more whether or not he is the greatest driver of all time, full stop. Nobody has won more top-level world championships or set more records in rallying, but it doesn't stop there. He's won in touring cars, GT racing, Extreme E, and come tantalisingly close to winning at Le Mans as well as on the Dakar – where his time will still undoubtedly come, as he spearheads Dacia's new campaign with Prodrive from next year.
It's hard to choose the best examples of his talent, but here's one. He was in contention for the Le Mans win at his first attempt, in 2005, but perhaps his greatest achievement that year was during the official test day, on Sunday 5 June.
As a Le Mans rookie, he had to complete the compulsory 10 laps within a certain pace on that day. Problem was, he was in Turkey at the time, winning the WRC round over there by nearly a whole minute. As soon as he had crossed the finish line in the afternoon, he jumped into a private plane from Antalya Airport (having had an exemption from the FIA press conference) and headed to Le Mans.
That aeroplane was equipped with a PlayStation – the company that sponsored his Pescarolo at the time – and Loeb spent the three and a half-hour flight practising laps of Le Mans at 10,000 metres and trying to get a bit of sleep.
By the time he landed at Le Mans, it was evening and beginning to rain. The pressure was on as this was the first time he had driven the complete Le Mans circuit (which is only open in its entirety prior to the race, given that the Mulsanne Straight is also the D338 to Tours) and everyone else had been driving all day – without their heads filled with winning a rally, in a completely different car.
Time was running out for Loeb to do his laps at the required pace, and he struggled to adapt at first. But with minutes to go, he pulled it out of the bag once more to book his place in the race – where he was in contention for the win before the experienced Soheil Ayari crashed their car on Sunday morning. The following year, Loeb was second at Le Mans in the Pescarolo, ahead of a plethora of factory cars.
But the Frenchman came close to an even bigger exploit, which would have underlined his place in history. As a long-time Red Bull driver, Loeb (aged 34 at the time) was offered the chance to test for the company's Formula 1 team at the end of 2008, setting the eighth-fastest time at Barcelona in the RB4.
It wasn't his first time in the Red Bull, as he'd sampled the car at a chilly Silverstone one week earlier. This author was fortunate enough to be there, and the only thing that perturbed Loeb throughout his time in Northamptonshire was the English food.
“I really wouldn't call this a sausage,” was his first verdict on Silverstone before he spoke more about his experience on track over lunch. He'd also sampled a Renault the year before, so arrived with a bit of knowledge of Formula 1.
“It's hard to say how it was because the conditions were not idea, but I felt good in the car and we had no real issues,” he reported. “Am I good enough for Formula 1? That's not for me to judge and I'm probably too old now anyway. But I would like to think I'm not too far off…”
Red Bull thought that he was good enough though – at least to run in the midfield – and an outrageous plan was hatched to run him with Toro Rosso in the 2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. To prepare, he took part in a GP2 test. In the end though, Loeb wasn't granted the necessary super licence, so the dream was over before it began.
“I came close and it would have been an incredible experience,” he reflected many years later. “Not many people get to drive in Formula 1 and there's a reason for that. But in the end I think my talent is more for driving rally cars, so I wouldn't have expected a lot anyway. If I was serious about switching to Formula 1, it's something I would have looked at when I was younger.”
Even with the passing of the years, Loeb has never lost his uncanny ability to pull off a miracle just when it's most needed. When M-Sport Ford gave the all-new Puma Rally 1 its debut on Rallye Monte-Carlo in 2022 – the rally team with the most modest resources and budget compared to its rivals – they entrusted the task to Loeb, returning to the championship he had made his own with a new co-driver in school teacher Isabelle Galmiche.
They won it, sealing Loeb's 80th career win in the World Rally Championship on the final day. Galmiche took the trophy to show her class of awestruck children the following week – only underlining Loeb's status a sporting hero of the people, in France and beyond.
