Q&A with Sebastien Loeb

Seven-time world champion Sebastien Loeb made it career win number 64 on Rally d’Italia Sardegna today. Wrc.com found out how.

You’ve been first on the road on every single stage. Was this the toughest Rally d’Italia Sardegna you’ve experienced?

“Yes for sure. It was the first time we’ve done it like this being first on the road all the time but finally there was a victory at the end.”

Given the handicap you’ve faced did you really believe you’d come out on top?

“I didn’t believe at the start of the rally I could make it like this. I didn’t know what would happen after the first day. I expected the others to be behind me, pushing me for Saturday but then finally Mikko [Hirvonen] had his problem [on Friday] and we got not a bad lead. But we were not in a position to play a strategy so we had to push.”

The stages on Saturday and Sunday were softer than the harder roads on Friday. Did that make any difference to the challenge you faced cleaning the road?

“I cannot say if it was better or worse. It made it more slippery with the sand on top of the hard surface. We made some nice lines for our friends behind.”

Did you change the set-up of your Citroen DS3 WRC to counter some of the problems you were experiencing?

“I change it since the Jordan Rally but not here. I clean the road since the start of the rally so I have no reason to change anything.”

How difficult has it been cleaning the road?

“It has been very difficult because we had to push really hard and take big risks.”

What is the hardest thing you face when you run first on the road?

“The braking is especially difficult when you are downhill because you are never stopping when you turn and the car is starting to oversteer a lot so you have to calm it completely to keep it in a line. It’s very difficult and we really have to adapt to the conditions - we cannot do much to the car. But it is a similar situation for the other drivers behind. They are cleaning too. Also, what we have seen before is sometimes the second pass won’t be as bad but there are the little cars coming behind and putting the gravel on the road so we are not sure where the line is.”

Was there any point where you were able to ease your pace or were you constantly 100 per cent?

“In the middle of the third stage today I thought okay now my lead is not bad and I saw on the splits I was two seconds slower than Mikko but I had a 24s lead. I said then now I could take it a bit easy and lose a bit of time and that is what I’ve done but before then we were pushing really hard all the time.”

You picked up an extra point on the Power Stage. Was the goal not to get all three extra points?

“To be honest when I saw the time of Jari-Matti [Latvala] I said it would not be three points and finally I saw Mikko started even faster than Jari-Matti and I was only 13 seconds in front of him. I needed then to have a really good rhythm and that helped me to keep pushing. I was feeling well but I done a little mistake in a hairpin when I nearly stalled because I should have been in third gear instead of first. It was a bit stupid but I lost one or two seconds on that. Except for that it was a good feeling and I took one point. I didn’t want to take any big risks.”

You’re now leading the championship by seven points. How significant is this?

“We don’t think to that. There is still a long way to go this season.”