Quote Originally Posted by theracingelf View Post
It doesn't surprise me at all tbh. The fact that he has been away from the sport for years still stands in my opinion, he probably still lacks some rythem to be on the pace straight away. Combine this with the fact he has come straight out of Dakar and most importantly, he has only driven the Hyundai for what, 1,5 days? No it doesn't surprise me at all, he'll be there or there about tomorrow I'm sure.
On stages with snow/ice/wet/gravel I expect Loeb to do well here.
But the dry/easy tarmac (lack of) pace is nevertheless surprising. Meeke, Lappi and Ogier also drive new car and have 1 or 2 days of testing on dry tarmac, yet they are 1-2-3 on the SD.
Loeb won last tarmac rally, so "being away from the sport for years" doesn't fit much. Little testing is right and he does quite well compared with his teammates with more experience in same car, but all 3 are too slow.
Btw. check out the twitter pic of Loeb's face from Neuville/Hyundai from discussions in service park during SD.