Young talented drivers

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Originally Posted by nafpaktos

None of his rivals from junior did something at top level.i dont say this trying to downgrade loeb.

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what are you talking?
McShea pwrc champion

Basso IRC ,European, and Italian champion 4 times

Duval works crew who managed to be faster at some stages against Loeb

Bernardi In 2005 he won the French tarmac championship,After Markko Martin stepped down from the factory Peugeot following the death of his co-driver Michael Park on Rally GB, Bernardi replaced him in the second Peugeot 307 WRC on the asphalt events in France and Spain.[1] He finished eighth in Corsica and then sixth in Catalunya. from wiki

Dallavilla Italian champion 1997

I repeat, good drivers for junior BUT NONE of them had a proper career at top level.duval matched loebs times only on tarmac and not very usually.i dont remember many rallies to have finished higher than seb.

I dont understand why you do comparisons.did i ever said that ogier had serious rivals on jwrc?he was the onle serious competitor,we agree on that but this has nothing to do with our conversation.

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Originally Posted by nafpaktos

I repeat, good drivers for junior BUT NONE of them had a proper career at top level.duval matched loebs times only on tarmac and not very usually.i dont remember many rallies to have finished higher than seb.

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so you expected at Loebs time at wrc to compete with Gronholm,Hirvonen.Latavla and Ogier?

get real mate.

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Originally Posted by nafpaktos

I dont understand why you do comparisons.did i ever said that ogier had serious rivals on jwrc?he was the onle serious competitor,we agree on that but this has nothing to do with our conversation.

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i write it just to compare the competition that you didn t find serious.But didnt helped you to understant.
You can always show me a jwrc year with much better competition than Loebs.

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Originally Posted by dimviii

You can always show me a jwrc year with much better competition than Loebs.

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No i cant,but i repeat none of them did something serious afterwards on top level.i cant find where we disagree?

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Originally Posted by sollitt

In fact his earlier exploits in WRC cars were nothing special.

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Maybe my memory fails me, but wasn't Loeb leading his first ever WRC event straight away in 2001 until his Xsara broke down? If not the first, it had to be his 2nd or 3rd WRC event. I even remember that Sainz, McRae & company tried to stage a protest to the FIA because they thought Citroen was cheating, that they were breaking some rule with the new Xsara. They just couldn't believe that this Loeb rookie was beating them so easily. Am I crazy? Didn't this happen?

We all know what loeb did.we are talking about the competition in jwrc.of course he was faster than big stars in the big category but i dont think the title on the jwrc is on his highlights,thats what i want to say.no one questioned his value.

By mid-season they will be the two most successful drivers in WRC history in terms of rally wins.

With all due respect, the likes of Niall McShea and Aaron Burkhart could not be more irrelevant in the debate.

Winner doesn't necessary mean best driver.
Loeb had best factory support, best financial package, best tech research and testing throughout his entire career.
I don't remember any other driver having such luxury.
No other factory team (except Citroen) have invested so much $$$ to get the job done.
I'm not saying Loeb is not one of the best drivers, but is he the best of the best?
Since there is no equal grounds for comparison, I'm not sure about that.