Sebastien Loeb hit back from his disastrous exit in Portugal to make it seven wins in a row in Argentina and his 70th in the WRC alongside co-driver Daniel Elena. He spoke of a "happy feeling" following the finish in Villa Carlos Paz on Sunday evening.
Seventy WRC wins now Sebastien and seven Rally Argentina victories in a row, it’s pretty impressive. How are you feeling after the event?
“For sure I feel very happy. It’s a great victory for the team after what happened in Portugal, when we scored zero points. It was important to react, we’ve done really well with Mikko; we’ve done a very good rally, first and second. I feel really happy and here in Argentina it’s an exciting rally. There are very nice stages and a very good atmosphere. It was a very long rally and to be the first and the second is really great.”
Let’s talk about the event itself and let’s look back to Friday morning. We saw some mistakes from you which is unusual, three spins in the morning. Why did that happen?
What was going on out there? “I don’t know exactly, we tried a new set-up here, we changed a little bit the set-up and the car didn’t reacted exactly the way I wanted in some conditions and I was surprised. It was just a little mistake, just some little spins that happened, one different, I hit a stone, but for sure I normally never do three spins in two stages so we had to change some things in the settings and after that the confidence was back again.”
What kind of changes did you make to the set-up then?
“A bit in the diff, a bit in the balance of the car, and I was feeling better after.”
So you had a good battle with your team-mate Mikko Hirvonen and you were putting quite a lot of pressure on yourselves on that Saturday morning. Was that why team orders came into play Saturday afternoon?
“Yeah, we really pushed on Saturday morning, for sure we knew also what was the situation, that the team orders would arrive soon. We both were trying to be ahead and it was like that.”
How did you find conditions out there on the stages this weekend, we’ve got a totally different day to the one we had on Friday. Throughout the weekend, how did you find the conditions on the stages?
“Much better than the prediction was, because we expected fog and rain and maybe snow and finally today it is sunny so it was not so bad.”
How are you feeling about the drivers’ championship looking forward to Greece?
“I feel okay. After what we did in Portugal, it’s not bad to be in this situation now. I feel okay, but still Mikko and Petter are not so far behind. Anything can happen, and there’s a long way to go.”