SHOTGUN WITH SEB

It isn't everyday you get to be co-driver to the most prolific WRC champion. Joe Dunn straps himself in for the ride of his life

- Joe Dunn

The water is too hot. We must stop, right now,” said Sébastien Loeb calmly over the in-car radio and the roar of the engine. Perhaps the greatest rally driver in history has dealt with more pressing problems in his time, but sitting in the passenger seat of the rally-prepped Alpine A110, a wave of adrenaline rippled through me.

Loeb eased off the throttle and the Alpine coasted to a halt on the side of the mountain track. “Get out,” he said. Which I did, sharpish. A cloud of steam was rising from the rear-mounted engine mingling with dust that the car had kicked up.

Moments earlier we had been speeding upwards somewhere in the Massif des Maures hills near St Tropez at white-knuckle speeds. Loeb in Red Bull race suit throwing the weight of the car backwards and forwards with throttle and footbrake as we approached each bend balancing it on a tightrope and controlling the momentum with instinctive ease then brutally yanking the hydraulic handbrake to slither around the hairpins. Hard on the power and the speedo reached 60mph as we hurtled towards the next bend, nothing but an olive tree between us and a sheer drop the other side. I reminded myself that as well as his nine WRC titles Loeb also once set the record for the Pikes Peak hillclimb which this road was beginning to resemble.

Then came the bone-shaking bang as the car sped over a depression in the road and bottomed out. We would discover later that the force of the impact had broken a coolant pipe and left a trail of liquid along the road. Loeb shrugged as he inspected the damage and the support crew arrived. “They will fix it,” he said.