Loeb 8 time WRC champion.

Yes Loebs latest form carries less significance given that the sport is a shadow of its former self, but when he was winning his early championships he was against big names like Sainz and Solberg and Gronholm, in a championship that had 5 or 6 manufacturers in it.

I have actually watched more IRC over the last few years than I have WRC. If the FIA want a lesson in how to cover rallying on TV, they should watch IRC. Its fantastic.
 
Skeeter said:
Yes Loebs latest form carries less significance given that the sport is a shadow of its former self, but when he was winning his early championships he was against big names like Sainz and Solberg and Gronholm, in a championship that had 5 or 6 manufacturers in it.
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Three drivers that were sadly a shadow of their former selves as well, and the manufacturers that left in subsequent years had already started pulling funding. That was pretty obvious.

I wish there was a way to get Loeb racing against the likes of the drivers I mentioned above in their prime. Sadly we'll never know how he would have done but i'd personally have put my life on the likes of Makkinen and Burns being able to beat him.

The only thing that would convince me is if we saw a return to the competitiveness of those days and Loeb still carried on winning.
 
Is part of the reason WRC isn't very popular these days because there are no famous British drivers? People used to be pretty keen back when McRae and Burns were racing.
 
From what I loosely remember, he was untouchable for the first two seasons, did enough in the third to still win despite missing the back-end of the season, was pretty untouchable for the fourth (although he never truly "lost" Gronholm, there was little doubt) and again ran away with it for his fifth.

Then for his sixth title there was the mid-season wobble that very very very nearly let Hirvonen in (about as exciting as WRC has been for a while).

His seventh was easy again - Hirvonen didn't really try in 2010 and again, despite a mid-season wobble there was nobody who could really capitalise.

Then there was this year, but apart from Sweden and Australia, Loeb had it mostly his own way, although GB threatened to make things interesting if Hirvonen hadn't retired.

I would just like to see Loeb under a little more pressure from the other drivers (admittedly he did very well to hold his nerve in 2009).
 
Tute said:
some of the ones like Hirvonen, are willing to have a go at him. But at the end of the day, you could bet your house on Loeb taking it at the end of the season.
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Now that Hirvonen has signed for Citroen i would put my house on Loeb taking it, Citroen wont let Loeb lose especially not in his send off year.
 
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Dangerous said:

My Video from the weekend
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Good vid! Thats the only coverage I've seen of the whole rally! :(

I don't have Sky but could usually download the broadcast somewhere and keep track of it, but this time I haven't even been able to do that. The really need to bring the coverage back to terrestrial TV and push it more to get viewers interested again as its my favourite motorsport and would love to see it popular again!
 
Street said:
Good vid! Thats the only coverage I've seen of the whole rally! :(

I don't have Sky but could usually download the broadcast somewhere and keep track of it, but this time I haven't even been able to do that. The really need to bring the coverage back to terrestrial TV and push it more to get viewers interested again as its my favourite motorsport and would love to see it popular again!
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Cheers

Some iPlayer stuff

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...n=2011+Wales+Rally+GB+Results+and+Reflections
 
Thanks! I looked on there so don't know how the hell I managed to miss that!

Also why is the rally not suitable for people under the age of 16 according to the BBC?!
 
I can't fully believe I am saying this but... I actually quite liked the Dave coverage of it a couple of years back. They had a real life presenter, casual interviews with the drivers, and more in depth features into things like tyres and pace notes.
 
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