Rallye de France-Alsace / Rally review
15/64
Loeb’s goodbye
On his last WRC outing in the direct vicinity of his place of birth Loeb probably imagined another outcome but rallying is always tricky. The nine times
world champion knows that from (limited) experience. Anything can happen at any moment, so also in your
farewell event. After claiming his 900th
stage victory in stage 10, he slid wide
after a few kilometres in Vignoble de
Cleebourg (stage 15), went into a spin
and ended up upside down in a ditch.
Rain had been falling for some time
and the road was very slippery, due to
standing water and mud thrown onto
the road by other competitors. Was
this the cause? Was there a very uncharacteristic loss of concentration?
No one can tell. Loeb was attacking,
so much is clear. “I was five seconds
off the lead and obviously I wanted to
win this last event. So I was going flat
out. But we went off, definitely not according to my plan. For me it is OK, I
have so many plans for the future and
I have achieved a lot in WRC. But it is
a shame for my fans; many of them
were waiting for us to pass. They have
defied the sometimes-horrible weather conditions here, just to see us pass
one more time. Also for the team, they
have been working hard to make this
possible. It’s for all of them I feel sorry!”
For the fans packed around the
Haguenau stage it was not so bad
however. Loeb could start a triumphal
tour through his ancestral town waving the spectators in an open-top car
quickly found by the organizers.