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World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb impressed on his return to a Formula One car yesterday, despite poor conditions at Silverstone.
The Frenchman, who was driving for Red Bull as part of the drinks firm’s sponsorship of his Citroen C4 rally car, completed around 30 laps of Silverstone’s National circuit.
He did all of his running on wet rubber, as an ice-cold circuit during early laps turned damp by mid-morning. Loeb’s outing was a shakedown ahead of his appearance at next week’s official F1 test at Barcelona, where he will join category regulars for a single day’s action on Monday.
Today was his second drive in an F1 car; he sampled Renault’s 2007 car last year as part of a promotional swap with Heikki Kovalainen.
Loeb, who has just clinched a record-breaking fifth straight WRC title, said, “It’s been a great opportunity to get behind the wheel of an F1 car again. Today the conditions were tricky, but everything we did will be useful next week at Barcelona. I don’t have a target for times in Spain, though; I want to go there, enjoy myself and get the most out of the day.”
Red Bull did not release any lap times, but one team official said, “We’ve been impressed by how consistent Sebastien has been today, and how he just got into the car and went for it. If he’d pussyfooted around then it would have been impossible to get heat into tyres and brakes, but he went for it from his first lap.”
John McIlroy
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