Sebastien Loeb and some rally stats

[300KPH]

Just been looking tonight at Sebastiens wikipedia page and down the end of it has like a table of all his WRC events. His level of results are hard to comprehend. I then went to look at Colins wikipedia page and as great a driver as I think he is, his results table is almost the opposite extreme.

At one point for Colin with Ford from say the midpoint of the 99 season to to first quarter of the 00 season, out of 12 consecutive rallies he suffered 11 retirements.

At the other extreme if you take Sebastien across the whole 08 season and the first third of the 09 season, there was 20 rallies, he won 16, had two 3rd places, one 10th place where Rautenbach crashed into him on a road section and one retirement.

I think its a definite combination of expert driving and a near unbreakable car. I remember Colin had a fair few car breakages in the 98 season.

Also interesting, Colin won only 2 rallies in his championship winning year in 95 although it was a much shorter calendar.


Richard Burns won only 1 event in his championship winning year in 01 over a 14 round calendar.

Seb won 11 out of 15 events in 2008.

[wolfie1978]

Probably more to do with the depth of talent of their rivals and their different aproach to rallying, Seb is just that much quicker than his rivals he can afford to be at 9/10ths most of the time whereas Colin was always on or slightly above the limit either because the competition was better or because thats just how he drove. The only real competition Loeb has ever faced was Gronholm or Petter Solberg and neither of those have had competitive cars for quite some time

[anonymous-user]

Great as Loeb might be, he's not really had serious compettion like mcrae and burns did. When you think they won their titles in an era when you had them,makkinen,panizzi,solberg,sainz,kankunnen to name but a few. Whilst i agree Loeb is better statistically, who has he had to beat over the years? Gronholm,solberg and hirvonen. It isnt quite the same really, however i agree he is a hell of a driver, and he still had to win his titles, ty werent gifted to him. Shame he came long when most of the serious competition had left.

[GravelBen]

+1

It may also be a relevant factor the massive budget that Citroen have (allegedly) poured into WRC in comparison to their competition.

If you want impressive, try Kankunnen - top level wins against very strong competition, spread over 20 years in everything from Grp.4 Escorts to Group B Peugeots, Group A Lancias and modern WRC cars.

McRae isn't really a fair comparison IMO, he was more like Vatanen - drove with his heart rather than using his head to accumulate statistics. You also seem to be deliberately using the twilight of his career as a comparison rather than the mid 90s when he was at his best.

Edited by GravelBen on Wednesday 25th May 09:53

[TXWRX]

was watching my old video of the 95 season last night and really it was so different back then its alomst a different sport. The rallies were still proper endurance tests, yet with the competition and nature of the cars they were probably driving harder then than they are now! equally though the way the teams ran and the servicing etc was massive compared to now, i would imagine it is possible to run a works team on a wrc event for a chunk less today than it was then (not saying you'd be competitive of course) also interesting to note gronholm was competing back than as a privateer toyota entry, and crashing a lot!

I tend to think the depth of competition has suffered a bit because of the cost of the wrc cars to the privateer. It does make sense for manufacturers to be able to take whatever they produce and make it a 4wd car rather than having to make 4000 road cars or whatever that group A required, but it means the individual car costs so much it is not a realistic option for young guys trying to get up the ladder. The BRC was never able to make them work because the only guys that could run them were m-sport with Matt wilson or Higgins, and other assorted wealthy guys, getting wrc car experience is very tough so the upcoming talent (keith cronin, guy wilks) haven't had the chances they might have in the past, and may already be out of time for the wrc.

Meeke getting a chance is a good sign though and maybe vw coming in can liven it up a bit, for too long its been citroen who have had loeb and other spanish/ french guys, or ford who seem to run a strictly pay to play rule under Wilson.

[EDLT]

snowy slopes said:

Great as Loeb might be, he's not really had serious compettion like mcrae and burns did. When you think they won their titles in an era when you had them,makkinen,panizzi,solberg,sainz,kankunnen to name but a few. Whilst i agree Loeb is better statistically, who has he had to beat over the years? Gronholm,solberg and hirvonen. It isnt quite the same really, however i agree he is a hell of a driver, and he still had to win his titles, ty werent gifted to him. Shame he came long when most of the serious competition had left.

In 2003 he finished second, beating McRae, Sainz (both were his teammates), Burns, Gronholm and he only finished one point behind Solberg.

That was he first full year in WRC.

Edited by EDLT on Wednesday 25th May 16:34

[anonymous-user]

Is this like the Schumacher (prime) vs Senna argument in F1?

[anonymous-user]

EDLT said:

snowy slopes said:

Great as Loeb might be, he's not really had serious compettion like mcrae and burns did. When you think they won their titles in an era when you had them,makkinen,panizzi,solberg,sainz,kankunnen to name but a few. Whilst i agree Loeb is better statistically, who has he had to beat over the years? Gronholm,solberg and hirvonen. It isnt quite the same really, however i agree he is a hell of a driver, and he still had to win his titles, ty werent gifted to him. Shame he came long when most of the serious competition had left.

In 2003 he finished second, beating McRae, Sainz (both were his teammates), Burns, Gronholm and he only finished one point behind Solberg.

That was he first full year in WRC.

Edited by EDLT on Wednesday 25th May 16:34

Fair point, but as someone said, look at kankunned and who he had to go up against to win his four titles, or makkinen to win his four. Yes Loeb is good, great even, but if he had the same quality fields to go up against, maybe he wouldnt have been so dominant. Anyway, it's academic, so there is no point arguing about it

[Carstudio]

"Also interesting, Colin won only 2 rallies in his championship winning year in 95 although it was a much shorter calendar."

It has to be said he'd have won 3 if team orders in Catalunya hadn't forced him to be second to Sainz though!.