WRC: Loeb aiming to put Greece behind him

Source - http://www.autosport.com

By David Evans

Sebastien Loeb’s crashed Citroen, Acropolis Rally 2009Sebastien Loeb says his biggest challenge at next week’s Rally Poland will be to forget the crash which ended his Acropolis Rally on the last round.

The Frenchman rolled his Citroen C4 WRC six times while pursuing the lead of the Greek event. He admits the he could have been distracted by changing a pace note in the middle of the corner.

After winning the first five rounds of the World Rally Championship, Loeb arrives in Poland – the first time the WRC has been there since 1973 – with only five points from his last two events.

Loeb said: “With six rolls, this is the first time [I have had such a big accident] and I hope this is the last. I make no secret that since it happened, I have thought a lot about it. The hardest part now will be to successfully ignore it the next time I take off at the wheel of my C4.

“My accident [in Greece] is difficult to explain. I made a small mistake in swerving at a right turn, as can happen, except that here, as I was slightly off line at the entrance to the following left turn and cut the corner a little, there was a stone hidden by a bush that I had not noticed during recce.

“This stone threw us to the outside of the corner, tearing off the wheel and that is where we started to spin [roll]. What is certain is that this was a driving error. But at the same time, I missed it [the rock], I was in the process of changing a note for the second pass.

“I asked Daniel to replace a ‘minus – minus’ with a ‘minus’ to just make this section a little faster in the afternoon. Is this what I was distracted by? I do not know.”

Loeb added that the fight for this year’s world title, where Ford’s Mikko Hirvonen trails him by seven points, remains wide open.

“Do not believe that because I won the first five rallies of the season, the story is over,” he said.

Tags: crash, greece, loeb, wrc
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