Not even the time to celebrate the second place overall at the 44th edition of the Dakar, which Sébastien Loeb immediately projected into the future to carry out the preparation tests for the Rallye Monte-Carlo, opening race of the WRC 2022.
This morning the 9-time World Rally Champion landed in the Gap countryside in a private helicopter after flying from Jeddah to France and, in the early afternoon, got behind the wheel of the Ford Puma Rally1 Hybrid EcoBoost to prepare his basic set-up in view of Monte-Carlo.
Loeb took advantage of the roads north of the Gap – this year they will not be considered for the official Rallye Monte-Carlo route – to regain confidence with the Ford Puma after driving the Hunter built by Prodrive and managed for 2 weeks in a row. by the Bahrain Raid Xtreme team in Saudi Arabia.
Loeb carried out his day of testing regularly, using the test car repaired in recent days in a few hours by the M-Sport mechanics after the bad accident that involved Craig Breen and Paul Nagle on the second day of testing this week (the the day before he had tried Adrien Fourmaux with Alex Coria).
So the M-Sport tests in view of the Rallye Monte-Carlo were carried out without too many upheavals, although Breen’s accident made us fear having to re-schedule the days of testing for Gus Greensmith and Sébastien Loeb himself.
In Cockermouth, meanwhile, M-Sport has provided for the construction of the four cars that will take part in the Rallye Monte-Carlo with the 3 official crews plus the fourth Puma dedicated to Sébastien Loeb.
Recall that Sébastien Loeb took the second place overall in the Car category at the Dakar 2022, only being beaten by Nasser Al-Attiyah at the wheel of the official Toyota Hilux 4X4. Loeb has won 2 stages, the first since racing for the Bahrain Raid Xtreme team, showing how the Hunter has grown exponentially since last year and that eco-friendly fuel has not affected the performance of the British car.
It remains to be defined whether and how many rallies Loeb will do in the 2022 WRC season. For now the only one scheduled with M-Sport is the Rallye Monte-Carlo, which will be staged from the 20th to the 23rd of this month.
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