08 Feb 10

Loeb: 'I don't think I'm Rally Sweden favourite'

Defending World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb has played down his chances of winning this week's Rally Sweden, believing instead that stage conditions will play into the hands of his Finnish rivals.

Loeb made the claim as his Citroen team unveiled its bid to win other two WRC titles this year. Loeb and Daniel Elena will be gunning for a seventh consecutive title, while Dani Sordo and Marc Marti will be the key men in Citroen's bid for a sixth Manufacturers' crown.

After rounding off the 2009 series with wins on the final two rounds, Loeb is hoping to carry his winning form onto the snow of Sweden - a surface he has conquered in the past. He scored his first victory on a surface other than asphalt in Sweden in 2004 and won the WRC's most recent winter fixture in Norway in 2010.

Loeb's last outing in Sweden in 2008 didn't go so well, however, with the Frenchman registering his only retirement from the season after going off the road and damaging his car's engine.

“I like starting the season with this rally but it looks like the conditions are going to be very difficult," explained Loeb. "You just have to stay on the road, which isn’t all that easy when I think back to the 2008 rally. My only aim is to rack up another world title, but the way last season panned out shows that you can’t count your chickens before they’re hatched!”

Sordo’s competition season began at the end of January, when he tackled the Arctic Lapland Rally - winning each of the 12 stages. “It was a great way of boosting my confidence on this surface," he said. "Even though I didn’t really have any rivals there’s nothing like competition to get you back into the right rhythm and feel the reflexes coming back! Unlike a test session where we use the same route so we know it by heart, each special was a new challenge for me and I had to analyse the behaviour of the C4 WRC. The route was very similar to that of Rally Sweden so I feel absolutely ready.”

As in previous seasons Sordo remains Citroen's number two driver, with the objective of collecting points towards the manufacturers’ title. But while the Spaniard is well aware of his priorities this season, he's still hoping to take his first win at World Championship level. “You have to be quick, consistent and score the maximum number of points in each rally. That’ll still be the case in 2010 but I want to push even harder," he explained. "I’m really determined to win my first WRC rally this year. I know I can do it, and whether it comes in one of the asphalt rounds or the gravel events that I like very much such as Mexico, New Zealand or Portugal, doesn’t make any difference.”

Citroen Racing Team Principal Olivier Quesnel said: “You don’t change a winning team so we’re tackling 2010 with the same crew as the previous seasons. The final year of the World Rally Cars looks like being a great one for the World Championship - and for Citroen - which has a real dream team. The drivers of the five C4 WRCs entered this season have all been word champions in motor racing: namely, Sebastien Loeb, Dani Sordo, Sebastien Ogier, Kimi Raikkonen, and Petter Solberg with his own team. It's difficult to do much better!”