NOVEMBER 18, 2008

The impressive Mr Loeb

Sebastien Loeb is a talented driver. In the World Rally Championship he has won multiple consecutive titles, and he has finished well in his attempts at the Le Mans 24 Hours. It was therefore reasonable to expect that he would do a decent job in a Formula 1 car. In fact he did rather better than that, finishing Monday just two tenths of a second slower than Robert Kubica's BMW and quicker than Renault's Nelson Piquet Jr. Loeb was given the job of trying out some Bridgestone slick tyres.

"I had fun," he said. "Although I have to say that driving one of these cars is tougher physically than driving my rally car. Towards the end of the day, I began to get a good feel for the car and enjoyed the sensation of it moving around on the track - and I have to say that the level of grip in the high speed corners is very impressive."