Loeb Notches Up Yet Another Rally Deutschland WRC Win

Count ‘em up while you still can – another couple of seasons and we’ll run out of fingers. Sebastien Loeb has achieved his eighth victory in Rally Deutschland, the German round of the Word Rally Championship. Driving a Citroën C4 on Pirelli’s PZero tyre, the six-time world champion was fastest on nine of the event’s 19 special stages, which covered a total distance of 407.31 competitive kilometres through the Mosel and Saarland regions of Germany, making it the longest WRC round so far this season. Loeb’s win, alongside co-driver Daniel Elena, was his 59th in the world championship.

Naturally, after eight Rally Deutschland victories Loeb can afford to come across a trifle blasé: “It’s a good win for me and I’m really pleased but I have to say this was not my best victory in Germany,” he reflected after beating fellow Citroen driver Dani Sordo by 51.3 seconds in the final classification. “The weather was dry from the start so the conditions were not as difficult as they have been in the past. That meant there was less pressure on me and less satisfaction to have won…however, I had no problems with my tyres and the wear rate was good.”

Dry weather and sunshine were the order of the day during the August 20 to 22 event. Ambient temperatures peaked at 31 degrees centigrade and the ground temperature rose to 40 degrees centigrade on Saturday afternoon. “In the morning stages most drivers opted for the soft compound tyre because it provided better grip but in the heat of Saturday afternoon some drivers, including Sebastien Loeb, chose the soft compound tyre, which can work when the surface is less abrasive and the corners are not so long,” commented Mario Isola, Pirelli’s rally manager, “It was an experiment by him but we found that while there was some degradation, it did not cause a performance disadvantage. This is very satisfying because it showed the performance of this compound can be good in hot conditions.”

“It has been another successful rally for Pirelli,” added Matteo Braga, Pirelli’s senior WRC tyre engineer. “We have seen a few cars come back to service with broken wheel rims, caused by hitting kerbs or stones, but with the tyre still inflated or not damaged. This is very good because it proves the reinforced side walls that feature on the Pirelli PZero tyres work really well and do their job. In fact there have only been three punctures where the tyre has been damaged, which is very impressive because this is a long rally with many surface changes.”

Pirelli made available its hard and soft compound PZero tyre for Rally Deutschland. The soft compound version is designed for cool and wet conditions, while the hard compound is designed for hot, dry weather.