In addition to winning the Rallye de France by 35.7 seconds,
Sebastien Loeb has captured the circuit's world title.
It marked Loeb's 60th rally victory and seventh global
championship – the 11th by a driver using Pirelli tires.
While Loeb's triumph was widely expected, the rain-hit asphalt
of the Alsace region became coated in mud and gravel dragged
onto the road by competing crews taking "cuts" through corners,
according to Pirelli's senior World Championship Rally (WRC)
tire engineer Matteo Braga.
"It meant Pirelli's P Zero asphalt tire, fitted to all four-
wheel drive cars competing on the event, was subjected to
extremely demanding conditions, which intensified when the rain
subsided on Saturday morning and there was no precipitation to
clean away the surface dirt and debris," he reports. "But the
tire passed the test with flying colors and was widely praised
for the level of grip it offered, despite the treacherous nature
of the bulk of the route, which covered 352.88
kilometers."
"For sure this is really special and it's incredible for me to
win my seventh world title here in my home town," says Loeb. "It
has been a very impressive rally but very difficult. There has
been a lot of support and I really did not expect this. With
Dani (Sordo) finishing second, Citroen has won the
manufacturers' title and me my 60th world championship rally.
Sure I led from the start, but the conditions never made it easy
and I really had to concentrate. Fortunately my car and the
tires were always very good and never let me down."
Jari-Matti Latvala, who produced arguably his best performance
on asphalt by going fastest on three stages in his factory Ford
Focus WRC and finishing fourth overall, notes that "the Pirelli
tire worked extremely well in very bad conditions. It was so
difficult with so much muck on the road but we never had a
problem with grip, particularly under braking for the difficult
corners it was always very good."
