Loeb under no illusions over F1 test

Loeb, who just clinched a record-breaking fifth WRC title, will test for Red Bull Racing next week at Barcelona, where most teams will return to action following the end of the season.

It will be the first time that Loeb, who had already driven a Renault F1 car, tests with other F1 drivers on track.

The Frenchman spent a day at Silverstone familiarising with the Red Bull machine before he moves to Barcelona.

The Citroen driver admitted the Silverstone test was useful for him, despite the very poor conditions he found at the British track.

"In terms of preparing for Barcelona, I don't think we'll see the same sort of conditions there," Loeb told autosport.com. "I hope not anyway! So in that way it wasn't so relevant but of course it was very useful for me to have some extra experience of the car, to find out how everything worked and check my seating position.

"It was also a really good opportunity to meet the team and get used to working with them.

"It's definitely better as all the time in the car is useful. I know a little bit more about the car now and I'm not coming into Barcelona completely new to it.

"But I don't expect Barcelona to be easy at all: it's the first time that I will be testing against the regular drivers in Formula One, so that's obviously going to be interesting!"

He added: "It was really good, but at Silverstone I only did about 100km with very low grip conditions so I could not really exploit the car. But just accelerating up the straight I could really feel the power so it was a lot of fun. I'm really looking forward to Barcelona now: I don't think it should be five degrees and raining there!"