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Sébastian Loeb: Tango with an earthquake

Last weekend, Sébastian Loeb competed in the Rallye du Chablais with an Alpine A110 GT+. He won. Of course he did. We knew that in advance because we recently drove with him.

  • Text
    Matthias Mederer
  • Fotos
    Richard Mille

Somewhere between St. Tropez and the dusty start of the rally route, when the adrenaline kicks in: No bats, no hallucinations - just 300 hp stabbing straight into the chest like a faulty heart-lung machine. But by then it was already too late. Sébastien Loeb had his foot on the gas pedal of the Alpine A110 GT+ and left it there for six or seven seconds, acting precisely, mercilessly, definitively.

We drive the first five kilometers of a special stage that he can do in his sleep. A strip of asphalt between Gonfaron and Collobrières - carved up by Loeb with clockwork precision. In the rear-view mirror: nothing. In front of us: nothing but bends, potholes and the sloping south of France.

He had warned beforehand, in his usual dry manner:

“You know what piloting means... so I think you'll be scared.”

Then he laughs - we don't.

Shortly afterwards: Loeb's voice on the radio: "Hold on. Now it's getting interesting." Maybe he didn't say that at all. Maybe it was just his imagination. Suddenly there is this relentless cracking under the tires, like the bursting of glacial ice, whipping over asphalt and gravel at 120 km/h - a sound that makes your jaw drop open and your pulse pound through your forehead. And then: a brief twitching of the valance - not much, but enough to let you know that you are no longer where normal people live.

1/3

This drive is not just a technical demonstration, it is the echo of a victory: Loeb won the 2024 Mont Blanc Rally with this very car - together with his partner. A stroke of genius, as they say. Richard Mille, his long-time supporter and partner in crime when it comes to precision, had sent the GT+ for precisely this purpose: to show us what is possible when you have nothing left to prove - but still give it your all.

Richard Mille, his long-time supporter and accomplice in matters of precision, had sent the GT+ for precisely this purpose: to show us what is possible when you have nothing more to prove - but still give it your all.

Sébastien Loeb, nine-time WRC world champion, the French messiah of the drift angle. At the age of 50, he still drives like a man possessed - not a trace of willingness to brake, not a hint of an end. “I'd rather drive than wait,” he says dryly, as soon as we were out of the helmet requirement. Or to put it another way: "This isn't a show run. I'm here to have fun. And for me, that means attacking."

The 21st edition of the Rallye du Chablais was not just a small event in Switzerland. It was a personal hellfire for shock absorbers, navigation skills and mental stability. An anonymous marshal once called it a “tango with an earthquake”. 96 teams - thirteen more than in the previous year - thrashed their cars through villages, along mountain roads and past church towers.

But only one of them drove with this strange mixture of mathematical precision and pure speed, because he has always been convinced of one thing: “There is no better way to understand the limit than to hit it head-on.”

Matthias Mederer

Matthias Mederer

Editor & Photographer
One car. One camera. A driver. The location? Gladly a city like New York, Cape Town, Berlin or Tokyo. If, on top of that, a typhoon passes through, the conditions are almost ideal. Matthias Mederer may swear like an ill-bred bare-nuckle fighter, but he also delivers. Compulsory and freestyle. His style: cinematic. "Basically, it's like a harmless Tarantino film for me: good soundtrack, a few crazy dialogues and with a few little tricks, in the end it's mainly the story that makes the mark." Well, and he can also write more than remarkably.

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