At the end of April, Sébastien Loeb will make his debut in the DTM touring car series at the wheel of the Ferrari 488 sports car of the AlphaTauri AF Corse team.
The 48-year-old Frenchman is ready to take on any racetrack and, as a rule, handles it with dignity. Suffice it to recall that at the start of the year he took second place in the Dakar Rally Raid, and less than ten days later he took his 80th anniversary victory in the WRC, winning the Monte Carlo Rally.
Now the nine-time rallying world champion will have to drive a completely different car, replacing New Zealander Nick Cassidy in the AlphaTauri AF Corse in the first two stages of the new DTM season.
Gerhard Berger, President of ITR, the promoter of the series: “The debut of the most successful rally driver of all time at the first round of our season in Portugal is sure to grab the attention of the fans. His achievements speak for themselves, but he will have to fight against strong opponents, and that is not easy.
Sebestyen will replace Nick Cassidy and will fight for the points behind the wheel of the AlphaTauri Ferrari and I have no doubt that a champion of his caliber has a real fighting spirit.”
Loeb has quite a wealth of experience in road racing, taking 2nd place in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2006, piloting the Audi R10 diesel sports prototype of the French Pescarolo Sport team, and taking part in 2014-2015. he competed in the World Touring Championship (WTCC) and finished 3rd in the individual standings both seasons.
Sebastien Loeb: “Over the course of my career, I’ve always enjoyed moving from one category to another. DTM is a famous championship and when the opportunity arose to participate in it, of course I took advantage of it. An interesting challenge awaits me, because in this series you have to apply a completely different way of controlling.
It’s time to get started. I have to compete with professionals who specialize in such races and I haven’t been behind the wheel of GT3 cars in a long time. The challenge is to find my rhythm and use all my experience to give feedback to the team as they work on the settings.
I understand it won’t be easy, but these cars are fun to drive, they’re really fast. In general, I will prepare.”
Today and tomorrow the official DTM pre-season testing will take place at the Hockenheim circuit, which will continue in Portimão on April 26 and 27, before the first stage of the season takes place on the last weekend of the month.
Source: F1 News
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