Jari Matti Latvala

[COD]

I must say: Latvala has made 2 ROOKIE mistakes allready in first 3 rallies. There must be something seriously wrong with his ability to concentrate. No driver with so much experience should make mistakes like he did in Monaco and Mexico.

[Francis44]

Loeb said last year that driving on Finland stages sometimes scares him, but I guess it scares everyone.

[Sladden]

Not necessarily.
If you accept that Loeb has won 8 on the trot due to his superiority over his oposition throughout this time, and you hold firm in your assertion that he could not have achieved it against these others (Kankkunen, Sainz, McRae, Biasion, Auriol, Mäkinen), you are in effect claiming that Gronholm, Solberg, Martin amongst others, were not the equal of those mentioned.
I'm not sure that's either accurate or reasonable.

I don't believe that Loeb is the best rally driver of all time. He is the best 'competitor' which is what has won him 8 titles, and probably only Rohrl would have come close to matching him on that score.
Loeb is an exceptional talent and would have been in any sport ... in any era.

Only in 2003-2004 did Loeb have lots of drivers competing for wins. Since then one or two drivers would challenge for rally victories in any given year. Very thin competition...

[Franky]

funny you compare him with a driver who was too scared (not to use another word) to do Finland.....

I'd wonder who wouldn't be scared of doing Finland in a Group B beast. Loads of power, not good enough suspension ...

[N.O.T]

I'd wonder who wouldn't be scared of doing Finland in a Group B beast. Loads of power, not good enough suspension ...

there is a difference between admitting you are scared, but doing it nonetheless and not doing it at all...

[DonJippo]

funny you compare him with a driver who was too scared (not to use another word) to do Finland.....

No he was not there were other reasons for it. Hannu Mikkola once said Röhrl would have won 1000 Lakes if he would have done it few times to get the know the stages and that's was not what Röhrl was ready to do according to Mikkola.

[Barreis]

Not a chance.

Loeb's reign will obviously go down in history, the most succesful of all time. But no matter how hard Loeb tries to avoid it, there will always be a BIG question mark next to his name.

One thing I'd worry about is how many fans the WRC will lose when he retires. WRC fan base must consist of 95% Loeb FanBoi's and 5% of people who crave some REAL competition.

Guy is not guilty he's the best. To be honest Hirvonen and Latvala didn't deserve to be a champ. But for Solberg wouldn't have anything against.

[RAS007]

Not necessarily.
If you accept that Loeb has won 8 on the trot due to his superiority over his oposition throughout this time, and you hold firm in your assertion that he could not have achieved it against these others (Kankkunen, Sainz, McRae, Biasion, Auriol, Mäkinen), you are in effect claiming that Gronholm, Solberg, Martin amongst others, were not the equal of those mentioned.
I'm not sure that's either accurate or reasonable.

I don't believe that Loeb is the best rally driver of all time. He is the best 'competitor' which is what has won him 8 titles, and probably only Rohrl would have come close to matching him on that score.
Loeb is an exceptional talent and would have been in any sport ... in any era.

The hypothetical example I used was Loeb entering the WRC in 1989, which would have meant a decade or so of competing against Kankkunen et al; I maintain that he would not have won 8 titles, in a row or otherwise, against such consistent and numerous high quality oppostion.

As someone else mentioned a few posts ago, for at least half of the 8 titles he has won, he has essentially been competing against a very small (2-3) group of drivers who were capable of winning a WRC event; this can hardly be compared to the WRC in the 90's and early 2000s, where there were multiple drivers capable of fighting for a WRC victory in any given event.

This is not to diminish Martin, Gronholm in any way, because Loeb has not won his 8 titles competing consistently against them, or even against them as part of a larger group of drivers capable of fighting for victory. The 2011 WRC Loeb won his 8th title in bears scant resemblance to the 2004 WRC when Loeb won his first title.

[Vargåsen]

Of course less drivers have had top cars at least between 2006-2011, but still, in the eight years Loeb have won, a Citroen has never been in 2nd, so no second driver (Sainz, Duval, Pons, Sordo, Ogier) have beaten the rest, which I think proves the car has never been superior.

And Grönholm, the driver with 2nd most wrc career wins spent half his career (2004-2007) being beaten by Loeb.

The competition in the early '90s wasnt superduper either, if you look at the results from rally to rally (for example, Miki Biasion, two times wrc-champion and 4th in wrc, '91, '92 and '93 never competed in rally Sweden), very few drivers competed in most rallys. In 1992, only three drivers, Sainz, Kankkunen and Auriol competed in at least 9-10 of the 14 rallys. The rest had very little chance of winning the championship.

Am I wrong?

[Lousada]

I wonder what internet forums would have looked like in the days of Alen, Kankkunen, Auriol... I'm sure the internet experts of 1990 would have ridiculed Kankkunen as a glory hunter for switching teams all the time. They probably would have diminished Sainz because he wasn't competing against Alen, Röhrl and Mikkola. Although others would claim that the rallies in the days of Rauno Aaltonen and Paddy Hopkirk were a lot harder. Tommi Makkinen would be deemed a rally tourist for finishing 9 minutes behind Ross Dunkerton in New Zealand. Ladycup Champions would still not be seen as real champions. It would be claimed that the FIA played favourites to Lancia because Balestre liked Spaghetti Bolognese. People would explain rally was ruined by either 4WD, Group B, Group A, Group 4, Lancia, Audi, Peugeot, FIA, Balestre, F1, BBC, Commentators, Promotors, Spectators, Rally Radio, Journalists, and it would never be as good as 5, 10, 15 or 25 years ago.