Int. Rally Driver: Sebastien Loeb

Loeb, who won a record-breaking fifth world title this season, becomes the first driver to win the award four times, having previously been given the accolade in 2004, 2005 and 2006

"Thank you to all the readers of Autosport for this nice award" said the Frenchman, who finished his season with victory on Rally GB earlier in the day. "For me, it was really a nice season and nice to end up as champion."

No one has ever dominated the World Rally Championship as comprehensively as Loeb has in recent years. With 48 rally wins and five consecutive titles under his belt, his WRC record is comparable to Michael Schumacher's peerless Formula One achievements.

Only turning to rallying in his early twenties after excelling as a gymnast in his teens, Loeb rapidly graduated to the WRC via the French domestic series and the Junior World Championship - winning the latter in 2001 before taking a remarkable second place in his first event in a World Rally Car in San Remo that year.

He then finished a close second to Petter Solberg in his and Citroen's first full WRC season in 2003, and has been unstoppable since, clinching his record fifth title this season.

Loeb made another piece of history in 2008 when he won a record 11 rallies in a single year. Not that this has been an easy season for Loeb, as the growing challenge from Ford's young Finns has forced him to dig deep for those wins - only clinching his victories in New Zealand and in this weekend's Wales Rally GB in the very last stage.

In-between obliterating the opposition in the WRC, Loeb has also dabbled successfully in circuit racing, impressing at Le Mans in 2005 and 2006. This winter he tested both Peugeot's Le Mans car, and Red Bull Racing's Formula One machine, and his times in the latter would have put him in the thick of the F1 midfield.

Loeb's distaste for the WRC's possible future regulations is well-known, and rumours of a future full-time switch to circuit racing have abounded this year. But whenever he moves on from rallying, it will be some years before anyone approaches his WRC records.