Loeb Shows Low Pace in Jerez Testing

Sebastien Loeb may have to wait a little longer before making his official Formula One debut. As we've reported to you last week, the Citroen champion was scheduled to test a David Price Racing-prepared GP2 machinery this week, in order to get used to driving a single-seater similar to the ones used in F1 prior to his projected debut at Abu Dhabi.

However, the lap times recorded by Loeb were poor to say the least, as the 5-time WRC champion lapped the Jerez circuit on Thursday some one second and a half behind his DPR teammate Michael Herck (while the Romanian driver is no ace inside the GP2 Series either).

While the morning times on Thursday were mostly influenced by a wet track, Loeb again tried his luck in the afternoon. His lap times showed some consistent progress in the second testing session – closing the gap on Herck to 8 tenths of a second – but the Frenchman was still the slowest of the 25 drivers who showed up for testing.

Under the circumstances, his one-off in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is still up in the air, as neither his manager nor Toro Rosso have announced anything on the matter (officially speaking). Loeb was initially scheduled to take Jaime Alguersuari's drive for the F1 season finale, as the race will take place after the WRC season will have ended.

Following his outing in Jerez, Loeb will get back to training for the WRC season finale in Great Britain. The Citroen driver is currently trailing Ford's Mikko Hirvonen for the championship lead by one point with one round to go and needs to finish ahead of his rival on the event scheduled 3 weekends from now.