Rally star Sebastien Loeb right at home on tight Guia circuit in Macau
Tackling the Porsche racing, the French rally legend says the complex Macau track is as challenging as the dirt roads he dominated for years
Macau's city streets on the surface might seem a million miles away from the backwoods rally tracks on which Sebastien Loeb forged his legend.
But there were apparently still enough similarities between the two to bring a smile to the face of the nine-time World Rally Championship winner on Saturday after Loeb had his first taste of racing, Guia Circuit style.
"I enjoyed it," said the 39-year-old Frenchman. "For sure this is one of the more complicated places I have driven but I come from the rallies so it is sometimes more natural to drive on this sort of circuit, compared to the more wide ones.
"Here you don't always see the entrance to a corner, it's a bit more bumpy and a bit more twisted. So it's not an easy track but the feeling with the car was good. In the rallies you are not allowed to make any mistakes and for here it is the same."
Loeb is the marquee signing for a special round of the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia that is being staged as part of the Star River Windsor Arch 60th Macau Grand Prix, which this year is spreading its action over two weekends of racing.
There were photos being snapped, and autographs being asked for wherever the Frenchman wandered and for his part the man universally acclaimed as the greatest rally driver ever did what he does best. He drove. And he drove fast.
Loeb, racing for Team Carrera Cup Asia, qualified for Sunday's 10-lap race in third place behind the LKM Racing duo of Japanese driver Keita Sawa and New Zealand's Earl Bamber, the 2013 series champion.