From what I have read of Loeb he grew up driving on muddy, and snowy roads--with crap tires...Here in North America--although on a vastly different scale some of the guys up in Quebec in Canada are shockingly (relatively) fast on snow and especially ice (no studs then)...that's what they drive on 6 months of the year. and of course they are all absolute lunatics whenever they drive anywhere.
And true confessions when I was building that nice Ford Sierra Cosworth 4x4 that sits over <-------there next to my beloved old Saab I often wondered how results would go...what i wondered was "was I at my limit? Would I have higher Overall results? I had done some 3rd and 4th and 5th Overall with an ancient --but light and built bigger engineand freer spec than old WRC spec Saab----logically it sure seemed like I should go faster (and tests seemed to back that up) or was that speed what I could do?"
I only use Escort because as Paddon showed so well it is a simple car that has no real vices and is capable of an outright win even against a whole field of turbo 4wd cars.. It is FAST....if driven right.
Still.