The Abu Dhabi GP will take place without Sébastien Loeb

Sébastien Loeb thinks that his chances of being on the starting grid of a Formula One race this season, specifically the final Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, are now over.

Although Red Bull agreed to offer him Jaime Alguersuari’s Toro Rosso seat, an offer Sébastien Loeb had accepted, the FIA did not see it that way and denied him the super license required to race in F1 Grand Prix.

The five-time World Rally champion admits not being surprised by the FIA’s decision. “The regulation to obtain it is very clear,” he explains. “I do not meet any of the conditions stipulated in the regulation. It is therefore logical that I did not succeed in obtaining such a license. These are the rules, the decision of the FIA. There is no reason to cry.”

Sébastien Loeb seems to have definitively given up on his ambitions of one day driving a Formula 1 single-seater during a Grand Prix weekend. “Opportunities like that, I had told myself that I would only have one in my life,” he explains. “That’s why I had accepted. Now, it’s gone. I didn’t get the super license this time, and I don’t see how I could acquire it without preparing and doing the necessary tests in F1.”

« Especially since, in this case, both championships were already decided. Button won his world title last weekend, and the WRC title is being decided this weekend. Therefore, my participation would not have interfered with either championship. Finding another opportunity like this seems very unlikely. All things considered, I don’t think this chance will come again one day. »

This decision makes at least one person happy, Franz Tost. The Austrian, sporting director of Toro Rosso, admits that he would have, of course, accepted the decision of Red Bull, the team’s parent company, but confesses that he did not support the idea.

“If Red Bull wanted something like that for marketing reasons, then of course it would have been done,” indicated Franz Tost to Auto Motor und Sport, adding that the idea made little sense from a sporting perspective. The competition in Formula 1 is higher than ever now. At worst, Loeb would have been three to four seconds behind.

He knows how to drive a car. You don’t become a five-time World Rally Champion if you don’t know how. But [in Formula 1], the last second is the toughest to achieve, which Valentino Rossi also understood.

On this last point, Sébastien Loeb rather agrees with Franz Tost’s analysis. “I wasn’t expected to achieve a result,” he adds. “It was clearly impossible. You shouldn’t think I’m saying this out of false modesty. I know what I’m missing when I race on the circuit: on average, a second per lap. I imagine in F1, it would have been a bit more.”

Sébastien Loeb is going to the United Kingdom this weekend for the last rally of the season to compete for his sixth consecutive title against Mirko Hirvonen.