Sébastien Loeb: “It was a good decision to stop the race”

Citroën Totol WTCC driver Sébastien Loeb believes the decision to stop the race in Slovakia was a good one, with the result declared after nine laps when the rain continued to hit the circuit, though fortunately no cars had gone off and made contact with the barriers.

The former rally driver had taken the lead at the start, and along with other drivers including Lada’s Rob Huff, agreed with calls made to stop the race at 75% distance.

“For me, you would have 75% of the cars in the barrier if we’d continued like this, so I think there was no other solution, it was too dangerous to go at the speed we are going,” said Loeb. “We reached 250km/h on the straight, and even when we were doing 100km/h there was some aquaplaning in some corners, it was very tricky and dangerous, so I think it was a good decision.”

Team-mate José María López finished second after losing out to Loeb at the start, and was keeping with Loeb’s C-Elysée but was unable to close the gap in the slippery conditions.

“After the start I just tried to catch Seb, he was quick in some places but I was quicker in other places, but the visibility behind him was really bad,” said López. “A lot of rain was falling so I started to aquaplane as well, I couldn’t really see where I was going, where the water was, so it was definitely a good decision as especially in the straights it was undriveable.”

The rain continues to fall at the Slovakiaring, with the next race scheduled to take place in three hours time at 17:45 CET.