Autosportfoto

On this day in WTCC history… Loeb begins his World Touring Car adventure

News was emerging of Sébastien Loeb's secret test in a Chevrolet World Touring Car on this day in WTCC history five years ago (14 August 2011).

The French motorsport legend, who was then chasing his eighth World Rally Championship crown, drove a factory Cruze at the Rockingham circuit in the United Kingdom as he weighed up his options for a life beyond the WRC.

Not only did the test, which actually took place on 12 August, make Loeb realise that the WTCC could be for him, he also used the private session - which was arranged by then factory Chevrolet turned works Citroën pilot Yvan Muller - to convince chiefs at the French make that a future World Touring Car Championship campaign made sense.

Eric Néve, consultant to WTCC promoter Eurosport Events, was in charge of Chevrolet's World Touring Car operation back in 2011. He remembers the test fondly. "It was an initiative from Yvan," says Néve. "He and Sébastien knew each other well and had been speaking a lot. Yvan told Sébastien to try the car and Seb quickly appreciated that it wasn't one of these lazy front-wheel-drive racing cars. Seb felt happy in the car and how it responded."

And he was quick, too. "At the end of the day he was 3/10ths of a second off Yvan's pace," Néve remembers, "but Yvan said the level of his driving and car control made him have no concerns that Seb would be up to the game if he tried the WTCC."

Despite having put Loeb through his first paces in a World Touring Car, Néve was under no illusions that his countryman could one day become a Chevrolet driver had it continued as an official manufacturer post-2012, when it withdrew.

"We knew it was a one shot from the word go," Néve recalls. "It was just for him to judge the WTCC and it came as a good surprise to him. In the end it came out that the test played a role in Seb convincing Citroën to go to the WTCC with him, which would obviously become another big story."

It took another two years for Citroën to announce a three-year WTCC campaign from 2014 onwards. Loeb was part of the driving attack in seasons one and two, claiming a total of six wins and coming within a point of beating Muller to the runner-up spot in 2015.

Aged 42, he now races for Peugeot in the FIA World Rallycross Championship but remains involved in the WTCC through his eponymous and successful Sébastien Loeb Racing team, which he co-owns with Dominique Heintz.

Zdroj: fiawtcc.com