WRC
In the space of just nine days, Sébastien Loeb went from second place at the Dakar Rally to an eighth Rallye Monte-Carlo victory. Here's how he did it.
Humblebragging isn't something Sébastien Loeb’s interested in. Suggest such a thing to him and he’d laugh out loud. False modesty is not a Loeb character trait.
When the French driving legend tells you going from 15 days of racing in the desert to four days in the mountains is no problem, it's no problem. But still, Loeb's journey from the second step of the 2022 Dakar Rally podium to Rallye Monte-Carlo winner in just nine days is something special.
"Really, it’s not a problem to go from the Dakar Rally to Monte-Carlo," says Loeb. "When you're driving these top cars with top teams like we are, it's not so hard, the Dakar."
For those whose memory might have momentarily skipped the first fortnight of 2022, this year's Dakar Rally meant 4,000 competitive kilometres across 14 days – just one of which was a rest day.
In those two weeks, Loeb completed more than 39 hours with his BRX Hunter in stage mode. His Monte-Carlo win took three hours to complete. At the Dakar Rally, he was doing that at least every day.
He's heard all that stuff before. He's still not buying the big deal: "The most important thing is to have a good Dakar.”
A good Dakar?
"Sure, where you don't sleep in the dunes. As long as you have some good days, you can have some good sleep: you start at seven in the morning and you can arrive at the service between three and five in the afternoon. We have powersteering and air-con in the car. It's not so hard.
"I was in bed very early – because I need to sleep a lot – and so, around eight, nine or 10 sometimes I was going to bed. I wasn't in a hotel, apart from during the rest day, but I had a camper [motorhome] in the bivouac and it was fine. I slept well. For sure, it's harder for the amateur and for sure it's harder for the amateur on the motorbike."
The transition
Eyebrows were raised when Loeb talked of his desire to go stright from Saudi Arabia to the south of France to encompass the top of the season's two great events. Ultimately, it meant flying out of Riyadh the morning after the Dakar's finish, spending one night at home in Geneva and then helicoptering his own way across the Alps to Gap for his pre-WRC test on Sunday, January 16.
He says: "I knew it would be a tough January, but I still enjoy Dakar and I still enjoy Monte-Carlo, and that’s why I decided to do both. I wasn't exhausted when I left the Dakar. I was in top form in Monte. The timing was tight and I didn’t have a lot of time to see my daughter, but I knew it would be like this in the plan."
One of the keys to Loeb's success was the transition he made between the two cars: the BRX Hunter, the off-road heavyweight and M-Sport's Ford Puma Rally1 Hybrid, the sharpest of cutting edges in World Rally Championship tech.
"I wanted to make the test on Sunday," says Loeb. "I wanted to do this before I started the recce for Monte. It was important for me coming from 15 days in the desert. I wanted to drive the WRC car a little bit again, just to get the feeling and the rhythm to give me my reference."
It worked.
"The feeling came really quickly," explains Loeb. "I sat in the car and after two runs the feeling was there. Doing Dakar before also meant I was in the race rhythm for the whole month. Even if it's completely different driving, I was awake for the driving in Monte-Carlo. I wasn't just coming off my Christmas break."
Car comparison
Sensing a part-by-part comparison, Loeb stops the process in its tracks: "The cars, they are 100 percent different. You can't compare. One is much heavier and made for the dunes with the suspension travel, and made to go flat out over everything.
"The Dakar car is quite heavy. When you start the long stage with 500 litres of fuel and the crew, we're 2,600kg or 2,700kg. It's very heavy at the start and the dimensions of the car are also very big, but it's a good car to drive, even if you imagine the weight. Actually it's quite reactive: you can throw the car sideways at 160kph and it’s not a problem. It's quite stable, it will not roll.
"The new car from Prodrive for this year was fun to drive. It was good for what we have to do, to go over the ditches and the dunes and sometimes flat-out through the bushes. You can do nearly everything you want with this car."
The cars, they are 100 percent different. You can't compare
With a largely dry Monte-Carlo on the horizon, tarmac-trim Rally1 cars were the order of the day in Monaco. Stepping down from the Hunter to the Puma was interesting.
Even with a 160kg increase in the minimum weight – permitted to incorporate the hybrid power units and battery – the 1,350kg Ford was a lightweight by comparison.
Except, don't forget there is no comparison.
“For Monte Carlo, the tarmac car is lighter, more powerful, but with much less suspension travel. It is much more dynamic, reactive and smaller.
"And, of course, it came with a hybrid motor. This didn't change my way of driving, though. There's lots of power and you have to manage the power; if you go full throttle then you'll spin more easily than before.
"My driving style has always been to manage the throttle. I'm not a driver who's very aggressive with the car, so for me it wasn't a big change – I was trying to be efficient and not lose the power of the hybrid in wheelspin. The system is automatic, the regen is automatic under braking and you get the boost on the throttle – it's not something complicated to use."
Try the tyres…
Still, no comparison. Rallye Monte-Carlo offered Loeb a choice of four Pirellis – the widest choice you get at any WRC round. He could select a soft or super-soft racer and a winter tyre with or without a stud.
"In Monte Carlo, you need the correct tyre choice. We do the loop of three stages between tyre changes, so you don’t always make the perfect choice across all three," he says. "On the second day, where we had some snow on one stage, we took a winter tyre and crossed it across the can [winter tyre front-left and rear-right; soft racer on front-right and left-rear]. This disturbed me a little bit. When I had the same tyre on all corners on Friday, I had so much confidence in the car. On Saturday the balance wasn't quite the same, but the conditions meant we had to do this.
"In the Dakar, I drove with the medium compound and with the soft compound and I think I still don't know the difference! We were using the one we had."
I'm not very aggressive with the car, so for me the hybrid motor wasn't a big change
The co-driver
Loeb wasn't alone for the Dakar and Rallye Monte-Carlo. Belgian Fabian Lurquin joined him aboard the Hunter, while Isabelle Galmiche co-drove the Puma.
"The job for the co-driver is a completely different job for the two events," says Loeb. "In the WRC, it's crucial to be in the rhythm and it’s quite hard to be in the rhythm with these new cars, which are very fast in the stages. The co-driver has to speak very quickly and give you all the information you write in the notes. It's quite specific and the co-driver also needs to manage all the timing, the schedule and tell me things I need to do, like 'OK, you need to charge the hybrid to 70 percent now'. It's a lot of things to manage.
"In the Dakar the role of the co-driver is also very important and it's really a navigation job more than a co-driver job. With the speed we go and the tricky parts in the roadbook, it's a lot of pressure – they can cause you to lose the race in one minute, so they have to be very concentrated during all of the stages, which can be four hours sometimes.
"He [Lurquin] has a lot of information to deal with: reading the road book, explaining it to me, slowing me down at the right point to give me a good distance to find another track. And if you get lost then you have to react straightaway and this happens all the time, on every day of the Dakar.
"If you miss a junction or waypoint, then you need to react in the right way to find the place you're looking for and not to get more lost. It's really another job. If you don't have a good co-driver in the Dakar, you have no chance. Now all the top guys understand the roadbook very well and there's no place for mistakes."
Which is tougher?
Loeb's won Rallye Monte-Carlo eight times now, but his first Dakar Rally success is still to come. He knows both events intimately and there can be little doubt that the off-road marathon is the more arduous of the pair, but which is tougher for the head?
"Maybe the Dakar," he says, giving it a considerable amount of thought. "I think that mentally this one is perhaps harder, because you've already driven 10 days and you know you have two days left – you don't want to lose everything at this point. It's really long and you know you've worked all those days to achieve something and, for sure, the pressure not to make a mistake at the end is quite high.
“But also, in the Dakar it's easier to manage the rhythm: you don't need to be on the limit everywhere. If there's a place you don't feel great, you can slow down a little bit and maybe manage this section.
"In Monte-Carlo, it’s always more intense for the four days – it's flat-out. You know if you manage and slow for a section you'll lose too much, so you have to continue to push even if there's a risk of a mistake. Actually, both were quite tough."
Quite tough. There speaks – with not a hint of a humblebrag – the voice of a legend.
