Sebastien Loeb Racing ends 2016 season on a high

The Sebastien Loeb Racing team has ended its 2016 World Touring Car Championship on a high note. Under the spotlights of the Losail International Circuit in Qatar, the Alsatian outfit indeed claimed another win - the first in the Main Race - thanks to Mehdi Bennani, a second place overall finish for Tom Chilton, two WTCC Trophy triumphs, the lead at the start of the first round thanks to the inverted grid, and especially its very first pole position at the qualifying session!

It was a performance owed to the Moroccan driver who had already clinched the independents trophy at the preceding race in China, ahead of his British teammate. Gregoire Demoustier made it to the Top 5. With 11 overall podium finishes, including three victories, a pole position, 16 private wins, as well as the WTCC Drivers and Teams Trophies, 2016 was definitely a banner year for Sebastien Loeb, Dominique Heintz and the entire crew from Soultz-sous-Forêts.

"I said before coming to Qatar that I would do everything to win here. It’s like a second race at home for me, and that proved true with support as strong as it is back in Marrakech," rejoiced Mehdi Bennani (#25 Citroën C-Elysée) who in 2014 became the first Arab driver to win a race in the FIA World Championship, and who in 2016 finished in the final Top 5 of the WTCC.

"The dream kicked off this afternoon with my first pole position. It was a surreal feeling after a magical lap. But what a great one! Then there’s this second win of the season. I had thought I would have to battle Lopez’s Citroën, but in the end it was a Volvo, 80 kilos lighter, that gave me trouble. Meanwhile all I wanted was to win, and at times I had to go beyond my limit to stave him off. Thank you to the King of Morocco, without him I would have never been able to reach an international level, but also and particularly to Sébastien Loeb Racing. It’s a team of professionals that has allowed me to achieve wins, pole positions, and the title I so wanted, the WTCC Trophy. Congratulations to them!"

"This weekend was the perfect way to end the 2016 WTCC season," confirms Tom Chilton (#3 Citroën C-Elysée) who at Doha claimed his sixth overall podium this year. "It’s fantastic, not just for myself, but for the whole Sébastien Loeb Racing team. I feel we could have won everything. Mehdi set the pole position, all together with him and Grégoire we won the WTCC MAC3, and I finished a fantastic second in the Open Race despite the intense pressure behind me.

I still want to be world champion, the Citroën is the best car, and the Sébastien Loeb Racing team is a very professional one. The guys are now for me like a big family and if I can, I want to stay with them. If I come back, it’s not to finish second, it’s to win, and they have the capacity to do it."