Brief but memorable - Sebastien Loeb’s WTCC career

After dominating WRC for nearly a decade, Sebastien Loeb decided to switch to circuit racing in 2013, before taking part in a big project with Citroen the year after, competing in the World Touring Car Championship. Loeb spent 2 years in WTCC, and this video, I go through his 2 years in the series, and whether I believe it was successful or not.
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[@sdx3918]

That Citroen man. One of the most overpowered and dominant cars not just in touring car history but motorsport history in general.

[@ic3man]

3:58 For those wondering, yes, Tom Chilton is Max Chilton’s brother

[@AdamHinckley]

and better driver out of the two

[@kencube86]

Citroen hired touring car legend Yvan Muller, rally car legend Sebastian Loeb, and an Argentine Jose Maria Lopez. Citroen swept the Constructor Championship. When everyone thought the Driver Championship would either be Muller or Loeb, Lopez beat both of them again and again. Eventually winning the Championship for three consecutive years.

[@NavF1]

Lopez had a slightly better reputation than that as he was contracted to race in F1 in 2010 for USF1 which never made it. Funnily enough, he was the weakest link at Toyota during their dominant hours in WEC, and was dropped recently for "young" Hirakawa. Lopez is back in GT cars now

[@AnarRamazanov-po5le]

​@@NavF1he's been replaced by De Vries in #7 car. Hirakawa drives #8 car

[@bbrod14]

Not letting this man start that Abu Dhabi GP was a crime against humanity.

[@rsb363]

Can anyone else remember his handbrake turn at Macau hairpin ?

[@Wafep17]

Watching Loeb racing at my hometown circuit ( Vila Real ) was hella awesome! WTCC/WTCR was big in Portugal but since the FIA removed Portugal from the scedule well, the fun ended... Atlest Vila Real still have World RX

[@kdm6287]

The Irish round back in 2009, Loeb was the only one that could keep it on the road.

[@pikminologueraisin2139]

Loeb 2003-2012: one of the best ever Loeb after 2012: the best

[@Andy_ATB]

I always felt he should have gone to Sportscars rather than Touring Cars.....His lack of racecraft was obvious in quite a few races. It's less of a problem in Sportscars as there isn't as much wheel to wheel racing....

[@juni_2452]

god i really miss wtcc

[@AdamHinckley]

he did do some GT racing as well *EDIT* 1:33 you mentioned it

[@flapjack2474]

0:32 is it just me who thought that was a log across the track that seb was about to crash into

[@bryanb5132]

Tge goat is back

[@AndrewGeierMelons]

I don't think people appreciate José María López enough. That guy would have brought the fight to Max Verstappen

[@j.s.p]

Make a video also about Kalle Rovanperä please...

[@fizgig280]

very funny to introduce Yvan Muller as btcc champion and not 4 time world champion

[@Scorpio19110]

Citroen joined WTCC when the series was close to dying

[@facundootero7973]

And did amazingly

[@drivingduck2234]

Not quite my view on the matter... Citroen cause the wtcc to die by forcing the fia to push for the tc1 regulations 1 year to early, if you think abaut why the c-elysee was so dominant is because it was basicly 1 year ahead of every other car, the inicial plan was for the regulation shift happen in 2015 witch is why the hondas and the vestas only apear( with manufacter fronts) in this year, volvo postponed 1 year and skoda and renault dropped their interest bevause citroen was dominant.

[@drivingduck2234]

I love this tc1 cars, and if I had to discribe Seb.Loed wtcc season i would say: They where fine, he was relatively close to Muller and Ma. He was never a top touringcar driver, just a medioker one the gor put into an unbeatable car, Noted that most of his great results happen in situation where the citroens didn't had any sucess balast on

[@pokefrosch617]

I loathed the TC1 Rules back then. Fragile cars, some very ugly and still slow. Unfortunatly it seems like Touringcars apart from BTCC is pretty much dead now.

[@pokefrosch617]

@@drivingduck2234 their reference point was DTM, and they were signifcantly slower but just as fragile. GT3 might be slower but has close hard racing

[@eddierodriguez4]

Well it seems like BTCC is also in a somewhat awkward moment right now, touring cars as a whole seems to be doomed

[@AnarRamazanov-po5le]

@@eddierodriguez4 at least we have TCR

[@ivaneurope]

@@AnarRamazanov-po5le TCR is also not in a good shape - the TCR World Tour, which replaced WTCC/WTCR, has around 12 full season entries with the rest being entries from whatever national series the tour visits. TCR Europe only had 12 entries at the opening round at the Vallelunga Circuit. TCR Germany which at one point had nearly 40 entries had been discontinued in 2023 with a planned reboot in 2024 never materializing due to lack of entries. And even TCR Australia struggles to have more than 15 cars per race weekend. Sure, there are outliers like Italy, UK and South America, but that's due to the sheer amount of second hand TCR cars in these series. Even in the car front things aren't looking particularly good with only Hyundai, Honda and Lynk & Co having competitive cars. Sure, Cupra updated their Leon TCR car to VZ Leon, but their support scope is pretty limited as Cupra is gearing towards EV racing. The Audi RS3 LMS is essentially on its last legs with the brand axing their customer racing division to devote all resources to their F1 project (which may flop). And then you have the Toyota GR Corolla Sport - an oddball project led by Toyota's Argentine racing team without any input from the main Toyota motorsport operation in Germany and is racing exclusively in the South American TCR series