Loeb fast enough for F1, say Red Bull

Multiple World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb has been hailed fast enough for Formula One by the Red Bull Racing team after the Frenchman tested one of their cars at Barcelona on Monday.

Loeb, 34, set the eighth fastest time of the day as F1 began preparing for the sweeping rule changes set to come in to force in the sport next season, and completed 82 trouble-free laps at the Spanish circuit.

"I expected to be pleasantly surprised and that was the case," Red Bull's race performance engineer Daniele Casanova told Autosport. "Sebastien has been really impressive. He has stepped into the car and not put a foot wrong from the beginning."

Loeb drove an interim RB4 chassis, with new slick Bridgestone tyres and simulated '09 levels of downforce. And while he was eighth quickest of 17 runners, the field was spread unusually wide due to the different configuration packages all the teams ran this week.

Nevertheless Casanova believes that Loeb's performance was of 'midfield' F1 pace.

"It's hard to the tell the exact pace," said Casanova. "From the fastest car to the slowest there is a 25km/h difference, so clearly a lot of people are running many different configurations, including KERS, wings and tyres.

"We are the correct weight, so at a guess I would say Sebastien is running somewhere in the midfield, which is mighty impressive.

"It's obviously fun to run a driver like Sebastien, but we also got a lot of useful work done. The new tyres are things that we have only tested two or three times before and they are really quite different. The idea is that this would be a normal test for us. So he was going at a good test pace, without taking any risks."

Despite proving that he has the speed, Loeb dismissed a switch to Formula One at this late stage in his career.

"Maybe I am too old," he told Autosport. "If I was going to do that, it's something that I should have thought about doing a few years ago. This only came about because it was an opportunity offered to me by Red Bull.

"You can't compare F1 to rallying, they are so different. It's not true that rallying is more of a comfort zone, because when I am flat-out on the stages I am concentrating just as hard as I was today."

The test was Loeb's second experience of F1, having tested a Renault R27 alongside Heikki Kovalainen at Paul Ricard last year - where he lapped 1.5s off the Finn's pace.

The Citroen WRC star added that he would love to drive an F1 car again and felt that there was more to come from him in terms of performance.

"I think there was more speed to come from me, but I am not going to say that I could have gone a second quicker or anything, because I wasn't," he said. "There were definitely areas where I could have improved though, particularly under braking.

"Sometimes I was braking too early and sometimes too late. I think it's the most difficult thing for anyone coming into F1 for the first time. For the rest [of the driving skills], it was not too bad. I studied some videos before, which helped with things like the racing line."

Loeb trades rally driving for F1 testing

BARCELONA, Spain: Five-time world rally champion Sebastien Loeb made an impressive jump to Formula One driving on Monday after taking part in the first winter testing session since the close of a dramatic season.

Loeb, who clinched a record fifth straight rally driving title earlier this month, finished with the eighth fastest time for Red Bull.

The Frenchman had a fastest time of 1 minute, 22.503 seconds to finish just under two seconds behind pace setter Takuma Sato, who was testing sister team for Toro Rosso.

"I enjoyed it very much. It is never a holiday when you are driving a Formula One car," Loeb said from the Circuit de Catalunya. "When you are a driver you dream about driving Formula One and if you get this opportunity, you take it... I would not say no if I had another opportunity."

Loeb said it took time to acclimatize to the G-force felt in turns, the difference in suspensions and the tires as 17 F1 cars tested slicks in line with regulation changes for 2009.
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Loeb, rallying's most successful ever driver, said that at 34 a switch to F1 was "maybe too late."

But he sounded like your typical race car driver afterward, however.

"I can go faster," he said, although he won't continue testing through Wednesday. "I know a few places where I lost some time and I know I can do better.

"At the end I was really feeling good in the car, there were no big risks, I didn't make any mistakes, there were no big moments, I just need to improve."

Loeb still has a race in Wales next month to close out the rally season. But the motivation remained the same regardless of the type of car he was steering.

"I like the fight and I like what I am doing, so when I start the stage I just want to be the fastest, so that's it, that's my motivation," the Citroen driver said. "I don't drive only for the title and for the victories, it's a question of pleasure."

It was the first return to the track since the season-ending Brazilian GP earlier this month, when 23-year-old Lewis Hamilton became the youngest ever champion after an overtaking maneuver at the last corner. The McLaren driver finished one point better ahead of Ferrari's Felipe Massa, who won his home race.

Neither driver was at the track on the outskirts of Barcelona, with Renault's Nelson Piquet Jr., BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica and Force India's Adrian Sutil the only F1 drivers present.

Loeb was faster than Piquet Jr., but teams were trying out different configurations making it harder to judge the true speed of the drivers and cars.

He also finished ahead of Ferrari test driver Marc Gene and nearly two seconds ahead of Bruno Senna, the nephew of former three-time F1 champion Ayrton Senna, who was testing for Honda.

It was the first time a Senna was behind the wheel of a Formula One car since Ayrton died in a crash at Imola over 14 years ago.

"Considering it was the first time I drove the car, I think it was pretty decent," said Senna, who timed a fastest lap of 1:24.343 from 39 laps.

"The car was such a big step up from GP 2. Everything is just a notch up. You cannot expect a driver who is new to Formula One to come in and produce a lap time that's magical, so the team wanted me to get comfortable with the car."

Senna finished second to GP2 champion Giorgio Pantano this past season. The iSport driver is expected by many to make the jump to F1 by 2009 or 2010.

"I'm testing for Honda so it's going to be my first choice (of team)," said Senna, who will continue testing with the team through this week. "I am satisfied, for a first experience it has been really good."

WRC Champ Loeb to test Formula 1 car.

SEBASTIEN LOEB TO TEST A RED BULL F1 CAR

Fresh from getting out of his Citroen C4 WRC at the end of Rally Japan, newly-crowned five-time World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb was handed a fantastic prize for his title by Red Bull, Citroen Sport's partner.

Red Bull Racing will give the Frenchman a chance to test one of its RB4s at the official Formula 1 test session on 17 November in Barcelona.

Beforehand, Sebastien will go to the team's headquarters in Milton Keynes to meet Red Bull Racing and prepare for the 17th. He will make his first acquaintance with the car during a preliminary test at the Silverstone circuit.

Sebastien Loeb is already eagerly anticipating this amazing experience: "I'm absolutely delighted by this present from Red Bull to celebrate my fifth World Rally Championship title. I already got the chance to test a Formula 1 car last year, but this time the circumstances will be a little different. I'm now going to find myself in the midst of all the regular F1 drivers during an official test. I just hope that I don't make a fool of myself! On the other hand, it's only for one day. I'd like to clear up any speculation about me possibly switching to F1...next year I'm definitely going to be driving a Citroen C4 WRC on the World Rally Championship !"

-credit: citroen

Rally star Sebastien Loeb claims fifth WRC crown in a row

SEBASTIEN LOEB yesterday won the World Rally Championship drivers' crown for the fifth year in a row.

The Frenchman clinched the title in his Citreon when he finished third in the Rally of Japan in Sapporo.

Finn Mikko Hirvonen won the raced by 31.1 seconds but it was not enough to close the gap on Loeb who said: "It's incredible.

"It's a great moment. It's perfect. I'm so relieved this weekend is over now. Last year my co-driver Daniel Elena and I equalled the record with four wins so being the only ones to do five we are very happy."

Hirvonen secured his third win of the year in three hours 25 minutes and three seconds but conceded that Loeb was a worthy title winner.

He said: "Sebastien won 10 events before coming here so he deserves it. I did all I could. Now we need to try again next year."

Loeb wins Rally New Zealand, extends WRC lead

HAMILTON, New Zealand (AP) - World champion Sebastien Loeb took advantage of Mikko Hirvonen's spin on the second-to-last stage to win Rally New Zealand by 17.5 seconds Sunday, doubling his lead over the Finn in the World Rally Championship.
The win was Loeb's 42nd in WRC rallies, his third in succession after victories in Finland
and Germany and his second in New Zealand, where he was last successful in 2005.
He came into the rally with a four point lead over Hirvonen in the drivers' standings and has now moved eight points clear, with 86 points to Hirvonen's 78. His one-two finish with teammate Dani Sordo of Spain also tightened Citroen's grip on the manufacturers' championship.
Loeb's winning chances looked at an end when he spun on the opening stage of the day, as he entered the penultimate state 15.3 seconds off the lead, trailing Ford's Hirvonen and Jari-Matti Latvala and Sordo.
The Frenchman was faced with having to make up half-a-second per kilometer, but circumstances soon turned in his favor around the dense coastal bush of the Whaanga Coast stage.
Latvala was first on the road and worked to sweep the road's thick gravel coating to improve traction for Hirvonen whose Ford Focus immediately followed his own. But he spun twice early in the stage, damaging his car too badly to continue. Then Hirvonen also spun and was forced to nurse his damaged car to the finish.
Loeb had some anxious moments on the slick corners of the stage but guided his car safely to the finish to take a commanding lead going into the final stage.
«This morning I had the spin and just wasn't able to make up the gap to Mikko. I thought it was over and we' lost the chance,» Loeb said.
«But then it all changed and we were leading again. But this was really a difficult rally, changing all the time, with some strategy coming in too.
«I needed to win for sure and that's very nice but I'm not happy for what happened to Mikko because he was doing really well and it was a good battle. But okay, it's a race and these things happen sometimes.
There was nothing Hirvonen could do on the last stage, from third place and 41 seconds behind Loeb, to retrieve the lead he had held for much of the rally's three days.
«I was really confident before Whaanga Coast that we were going to win this rally but what could we do?» Hirvonen said.
«We had a slow puncture that dropped us to third.

«That's how it is now. I'm not going to let this knock my confidence. I know we can win rallies. The season isn't over yet so we just have to go flat out again on the next rallies.
The close finish was reminiscent of last year's New Zealand rally which was decided on the final stage and in which Loeb was beaten by 0.3 seconds by Marcus Gronholm _ the slimmest winning margin in WRC history.
Loeb declared before the Whaanga Coast stage that it was «impossible to get the victory». His chances had seemed to dissolve on the opening stage of the day when he spun, finished 12th and dropped 17.7 seconds off the lead.
«It was a long, long left and I went in the wrong camber,» Loeb said.
«When I pushed, the car was spinning, spinning, spinning, and I couldn't stop it. I lost a lot of time.
Sordo ended the rally in second place, 17.5 seconds behind Loeb, while Hirvonen was third, 41.5 seconds down and Petter Solberg of Norway fourth in a Subaru.