Sébastien Loeb Racing stars in the latest surprise for the opening season of the WTCR, switching to Volkswagen despite the obvious link between the French driver and the PSA group that houses Citroën and Peugeot.
It would have been expected to see Sébastien Loeb Racing continuing their association with PSA for the first season of the new WTCR, with Peugeot as the main candidate after having been associated with Citröenin recent years at the WTCC. After all, Loeb has been the ace of the group for almost two decades and his association with them is taking him back to the WRC with a limited program… but the final choice for the WTCR has been Volkswagen.
Indeed, Sébastien Loeb Racing will take part in the new WTCR with two Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR instead of racing with Peugeot, as it would have been expected. Common sense and logic have been defeated this time and sporting reasons have taken over. The Golf is one of the most competitive TCR machines, which means the squad will have great chances of getting good results.
That means that the team which belongs to the nine-times world rally champion will feature a competitive machine that took Stefano Comini and Jean-Karl Vernay to the TCR International Series titles in 2016 and 2017. Moreover, the drivers that have been chosen for the task are Rob Huff and Mehdi Bennani.
Huff was the WTCC champion in 2012 and he already knows the TCR machines after having taken part in the TCR International Series last year with WRT, taking a race win in China. On the other hand, Bennani will have to learn the secrets of his new steed, although his performance of late is encouraging.