Loeb about his crash in SS5 at Rally de Portugal



Sebastien Loeb explains the unexpected crash he had in Stage 5 of Rally de Portugal which led him to retire from the rest of the day.


The nine-time World Rally Champion ran wide on the first corner in Stage 5 and clouted a barrier with the rear right of his Ford Puma Rally1 resulting in damaging the steering arm and the suspension.


From this impact, he was unable to continue in the next afternoon stages of Friday and to protect his lead from Elfyn Evans as he was first overall at the end of Stage 4.


However, M-Sport Ford managed to repair his car for Saturday despite the fact that it was 50:50 if he would restart under the regulations of Rally2 as the team wanted to give priority to the other cars which were less damaged than Loeb's car.


Eventually, Loeb restarted on Saturday, but a technical issue struck him in Stage 11 as he had no power resulting in driving slowly during that stage and forcing him to retire at the end of SS11.


Unfortunately, M-Sport Ford decided to retire Loeb's car after the technical issue, therefore he did not start on Sunday.


"First corner there was less grip than I expected on Tarmac with the hard tire or maybe with the dust and the gravel that came since the morning, so I enter into the corner, slide immediately, missed a bit the apex and I think I went into the loose gravel and hit a little bit the wall", Loeb said.


"I understood immediately after 20 meters that it’s broken".


Source: DirtFish.com


Photo Credits: M-Sport

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