Loeb expressed hopes to minimize the time gap from Day 1 in the following days of the event, as he reckons he will most likely not make it to the end of the day on top of the standings.
“The conditions are very, very good. There's a lot of snow and it's very cold, so a real winter rally. So I'm sure we will have a lot of fun in this rally. I hope I will be able to fight for the victory. I know I will lose some time on the first day because of the road conditions - there's too much snow for the first car,” said Loeb earlier today, at the press conference before Rally Norway.
“So it will be difficult on Friday. But we'll see, I hope to not lose too much time and then on Saturday we'll see what we can do. It's difficult to beat the Finnish drivers, they're real specialists on this surface. The first thing is to stay on the road, because I went off the road (in Norway) two years ago.”
“You have to push from the start to the end because it's always a very close battle on this surface and sometimes you cannot catch back up. It will be important to start fast on the first day and not lose too much time with the road conditions,” added the Citroen champion.
Shortly after winning the season opener in Ireland, both Loeb and Citroen Total team admitted that the event in Norway will better suit the Nordic drivers from Ford's works team. It was in Norway that Mikko Hirvonen recorded his first ever WRC win for Ford two years ago, the series' first and last visit at Oslo ahead of its 2009 edition. Neither Loeb, nor teammate Dani Sordo managed to finish the 2007 event.
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