Heavy crash makes Loeb retire Rally of Sweden

[Principessa]

Sebastien Loeb has retired from day one of the Swedish Rally as he suffered a heavy crash. Loeb's C4 went off track and tumbled over 2 times. The Frenchman remained unharmed but his car was heavily damaged and could not be repaired in time for the next manche.

Due to this accident, the Rally season might get more exciting?

[Belatti]

I dont think so.
Sweden rally has proven to be exclusively for Nordic drivers (except for Loeb in 2004).
Loeb will recover.

[West]

SPEED dropped its WRC coverage a few years ago for more NASCAR and ricer programs.

History says that this is a minor setback for Loeb. Didn't he miss a few races a few years ago and still win the driver's championship.

[Ray]

Speed dropped WRC coverage because the number of viewers was really low. They didn't want to pay for the rights to broadcast it if no one was watching. I wish they would get rid of most of the crap on their normal schedule, including that moron Peter Windsor. West, I guess we were the only two watching!

I think he'll be alright. Coming back won't be to hard for him (I hope).

[Roland Ehnström]

Thanks for the SPOILER, not!

[West]

Speed dropped WRC coverage because the number of viewers was really low. They didn't want to pay for the rights to broadcast it if no one was watching. I wish they would get rid of most of the crap on their normal schedule, including that moron Peter Windsor. West, I guess we were the only two watching!

They should replace all those crap shows w/ Charity Hodges doing something related to cars.

Sebastian Loeb is probably the Tommi Makinen of this era.

[vyselegend]

Well, I remember some people were predicting a boring year, with an "easy course to the victory" for Loeb, without the competition of Groenholm.

Now it suddenly seems harder. As the saying goes:

"Alway roll your tongue seven time in your mouth before speaking."

[Ciro Pabón]

Speed dropped WRC coverage because the number of viewers was really low...

I don't understand. I watched WRC until last year in Speed (Latin American version). Yesterday I watched Rally 4 or whatever it's the name for British rally races. Now that you mention it, I haven't seen WRC races this year.

[Tom]

Is this the incident? http://youtube.com/watch?v=XoMSDrcSe0k

A friend told me he crashed twice. I find that hard to believe.

[ClioSport197]

I really enjoyed this weekends rally. With Loeb retiring it gave other young hopefuls (i.e. Latvala , Galli and Wilson to an extent) the chance to prove themselves. I've uploaded several vids from the weekend here (youtube). Congrats to Latvala, he deserved the win.

[Roland Ehnström]

Tom, Loeb crashed only once. He could continue, but the clutch was gone and the engine damaged, so he later retired.

vyselegend, I'm afraid this means nothing, it will still be a boring year. This result makes the championship look a little bit more interesting on paper, but in reality Loeb will dominate this year too. It's like F1 2004, the best driver sits in the best car. Hirvonen is good, but no Grönholm. Latvala could be a future champion, but not this year. Sordo is clear second driver at Citroen and already too far behind in the championship to turn that around, and only really fast on tarmac anyway. The Subaru's are too old and the Suzuki's too new. The non-factory teams, finally, have no real chance to win a championship.

[zac510]

I was at the event, here are some pics:

[dumrick]

Amazing photos, Zac. Beatiful Citroëns and Pug...

[m3_lover]

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/02/12/vide ... at-swedis/

[Belatti]

What a beautiful Subaru black and white last pic, Zac!
I really love that car.

This subaru was a beautiful car:



This is ugly ugly carp: