Sébastien Loeb thrilled his home crowd with a maiden appearance in a Hyundai i20 R5 car at the Rallye Terre du Haut-Var last weekend.

Loeb was driving the private car for fun, but still set an unbeatable pace on eight out of the event’s 10 stages.

Fixing a steering issue from the second stage dropped the nine-time champion from the lead to 42nd position on the Draguignan-based event, but he’d recovered to fifth place by the finish on Sunday afternoon.

Loeb said: “It was a great weekend, I had a lot of fun going back to the French Gravel Rally Championship.

“The last time I drove there was in 2000, so it was a really nice moment. As in the past there were plenty of spectators and I could feel a lot of support from the French fans.”

Loeb admitted the i20 R5 was a straightforward switch from the i20 Coupe WRC he’s driven on six rallies so far this season.

“It was,” he said, “my first time driving the Hyundai i20 R5 in competition and it was quite easy for me to get used to it. We had a one day test before the event and I could feel immediately at ease with the car. The first day wasn’t easy as we had to open the road and there was a lot of cleaning but we could still set the fastest time on the first stage of the event.

“Unfortunately we opened a wheel on a straight line on SS2 so we lost a lot of [penalty] time before stage three to repair it. Of course, the main goal was not too much focused on the performance, but more to discover the car and take some pleasure driving at home in front of the French crowds.

“We had a lot of fun in the car.”

Thibault Durbec won Rallye Terre du Haut-Var, his third straight French Gravel Rally Championship in his PH Sport-run DS 3 WRC.

Loeb will be back in an i20 Coupe WRC at the end of the month, when he furthers his asphalt education with the car on the Rally di Alba in Italy.

Photo: MAP/Aurélien Vialatte

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