Loeb beats Vettel to be crowned ROC Champion of Champions on Sweden’s snow
France’s world rally legend Sebastien Loeb made a fantastic achievement to darken 17 other superstars in motorsport and win the 2022 Race Of Champions on a day of non-stop action on the frozen Baltic Sea at Pite Havsbad in Sweden, just 90 miles from the Arctic Circle.
After Team Norway’s triumph in yesterday’s ROC Nations Cup, all cooperation went out the window today. The individual Race Of Champions put some of the world’s best drivers head-to-head on the ROC’s iconic parallel track, specially built on ice for the first time. After an unprecedented tide, yesterday’s racing took place on only the inner half of the track, today the drivers were able to let loose on the entire track with ROC’s famous crossover bridge.
On an afternoon of heavy snow at Pite Havsbad, Race Of Champions’s greats in global motorsport fought for glory in a mix of identical machines, including the FIA RX2e electric rallycross car, Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport, off-road Polaris RZR PRO XP and the 100% fossil-free biofuel-powered SuperCar Lites.
In front of crowds of Swedish fans who braved the cold, the best of five big finals boiled down to a duel between a couple of true legends: nine-time world champion Loeb in rally and four-time F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel.
After an exciting final when both drivers pushed themselves to the limit in the snowstorm, Loeb awaited his German rival with three heats against one to be crowned ROC Champion of Champions for the fourth time. He is thus equal to the record of all time as Didier Auriol, his partner for Team France in yesterday’s ROC Nations Cup.
Its @SebastienLoeb who will be the 2022 ROC Champion of Champions!
Loeb is equal to Didier Auriol with a record four wins after holding off a hard-charging Sebastian Vettel at. #ROCSverige. 🔥🔥🔥
Hats off to both legends! 👏 pic.twitter.com/hXvQ5zrx3F
– #ROCSweden (@RaceOfChampions) February 6, 2022
“It’s been a long time since I last went to the Race Of Champions, so I’m happy to find out that at 47 I’m still having the pace!” in Loeb. “This contributes to my good start to the season: second in the Dakar Rally, first in Monte Carlo and now a victory here at ROC.
– It was not easy for us to meet all Swedish and Norwegian guys because they are more used to these conditions. I also knew that it would be difficult to adapt between Porsche, buggy and rallycross cars. But after I got through to Petter Solberg, I gained more confidence for each run. It was a nice fight with Seb in the final and I had a good feeling – except when I completely lost control of the car in the third heat! Now we’re here, and it’s amazing to reach Didier’s record of four ROC Champion of Champions titles.
“We must also congratulate the ROC organizers who have done a good job all week in difficult circumstances. They had to deal with an exercise track that sailed away to Finland, a snowstorm during the exercise and a rising sea. But everyone kept a good mood and a positive attitude, without stress, always found solutions. And they found it. “
Vettel added: “Sebastien was way too fast today. The conditions were tricky out there and it became more and more slippery, which I guess is normal for snow and ice! I do not have much experience so it was a struggle to adapt; my daily job of being sideways is what we try to avoid. But I felt I got better every time I drove. It’s a good sign, but also a sign that I still have a lot to learn. Yesterday was a short day because I let Team Germany down and we went out very quickly, but today I was able to get more into the track. I knew the final was a long way and I might have pushed too hard, but I knew I had to go for it to be I made mistakes here and there, so under these conditions I have a little to catch up …
“We’ve missed two years of Race Of Champions so it’s great to be back and have a sense of normalcy. I really enjoyed coming here on another surface too. It’s great to have the fans back too and I’m impressed “from seeing so many people in the audience. I do not know how they can stand the cold and the wind in their faces, but they seemed happy and able to do it! Now I hope we can come back to Sweden again.”
Oh Seb …! 😂😂😂#ROCSverige pic.twitter.com/MPF8EoZqJe
– #ROCSweden (@RaceOfChampions) February 6, 2022
To reach the grand final, Loeb and Vettel had to watch from a field with 18 of the world’s best drivers. As the track conditions on snow and ice can change quickly depending on the weather, ROC’s traditional group games did not take place. Instead, this year’s Race Of Champions used a straight knockout system with the field divided into two halves: one contained the international racing drivers while the other had the rally experts and those with more experience of off-road driving.
In the semi-final best-of-three, Vettel beat nine-time Le Mans 24-hour winner Tom Kristensen 2-0 to boast in the race drivers’ half of the draw, even though the Dane was hampered by a mechanical problem in the first heat.
On the rally side, Loeb finished at the top of the pile after putting an end to a brisk drive by double DTM champion and FIA World Rallycross champion Mattias Ekström, who was the last Swedish driver to stand in front of his home fans. The match went to a decisive third heat, won by the Frenchman.
The quarterfinals, which were decided over two heats, had many big names bite into the dust – not least the seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson, who lost to Kristensen. IndyCar’s youngest race winner ever Colton Herta was the second race driver to go out, beaten by Vettel on recalculation of fastest times after a 1-1 draw.
On the rally side, Loeb saw the rising WRC star Oliver Solberg after a match where one of their races ended in a deadlock, to the nearest thousandth of a second. The other driver to leave at this stage was four-time FIA World Rallycross champion Johan Kristoffersson, who lost to Ekström despite winning his first race heat by just one hundredth of a second.
The round of 16 was another cemetery for motorsport superstars. In the racing half of the draw, double F1 world champion Mika Hakkinen went into Johnson’s hands while his longtime McLaren F1 teammate David Coulthard was defeated by Kristensen. Double W Series champion Jamie Chadwick and this year’s second in the W Series Emma Kimilainen also left the competition at this stage, beaten by Herta and Vettel respectively.
The rally side of the draw was just as brutal. FIA World Rally and World Rallycross Champion Petter Solberg could not find a way past Loeb so there was no repetition of yesterday’s ROC Nations Cup glory. His second world rallycross champion Timmy Hansen had to accept defeat against Kristoffersson after crashing, while four-time ROC champion Didier Auriol fell to Ekström. Mexico’s reigning ROC champion Benito Guerra was another of the early victims after being beaten by Oliver Solberg.
As a start to the afternoon’s action, four of the race drivers were matched in pairs for two round 1 playoffs. Germany’s FIA F2 and F3 champions Mick Schumacher were defeated by Chadwick while four-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves also had to say goodbye early after falling to Herta. The Brazilian ace was later seen relaxing in style in the ROC Drivers’ Lounge after explaining that he and Snow “do not mix”.