Is Loeb's return paying off for Hyundai?

Sebastien Loeb looked a little bit surprised, but then smiled. I was equally surprised by the comment and I'd made it. But it had to be said. It was an important point that needed registering. Even if it was before 7am on a Sunday morning.

Concluding my pre-day three Chile chat, I noticed something different about the nine-time World Rally champion.

"You've shaved..."

A sip of espresso later and a grin.

"I had to. I start to look too old if I don't."

But the fight he was fighting that day was anything but the battle of an old man. With one day remaining on the roads between the Pacific and the Andes, Loeb was 5.1 seconds behind his second-placed former nemesis Sebastien Ogier.

One stage into that Sunday and that gap was down to 1.1s. But that was as close as he would get to his Citroen-driving rival. However, should he have even come that close?

What about the theory that these two years are about topping up the bank balance and enjoying one last hurrah, one more tour of his favourite roads with his mate Daniel Elena alongside? On the surface, indifferent results in Monte Carlo, Sweden and Corsica might have hinted at such an attitude. But if you think that, you couldn't be more wrong.

I've reported on Loeb for his whole career and I've rarely seen him more focused than he is right now. Certainly, it's a different Sebastien to the one who quietly ruled Citroen with his mentor and main man Guy Frequelin alongside him at the top of the tree.

One of the aspects of Loeb's return that captivated more than most was the question of how he would fit into somebody else's team. Even when he'd departed Citroen's rally attack, when he came back - regardless of who was leading the team - it remained his domain.

He would, it seemed, always lead the red army. But what about the soldiers in orange and blue? The ones who stand behind Thierry Neuville at Hyundai?

Put it this way: if you lined the Hyundai drivers up side-by-side, you wouldn't pick Loeb out as the man who'd won 78 WRC rounds. He's settled in very well, allowing his natural humility, engineering nous and dynamite speed to do his talking.

"With these cars, this pace is so fast - you have to be perfect or you are a little bit nowhere" Sebastien Loeb

But one person who's more than happy to talk on Loeb's behalf is Hyundai Motorsport director Andrea Adamo.

"From the outside, I can understand that somebody might believe in this nice movie," he says. "You know, the guy comes back and wins first time out. [But] life is different from the movie. It started in Monte Carlo when he had one day [to] test after coming back from the Dakar and it was a fucking difficult rally, he got hit down every time. But he did what he planned to do - he got through the first rally and then he improved and improved."

Fourth was the result on the season opener. And, as Loeb has never massively been at home in the Scandinavian snow, Sweden was a struggle too and this was where we really saw him dig deep. He talked with more intensity with his engineers, he retreated a little from the media as he worked harder within himself to find an answer to make the car turn in and deliver the balance he wanted.

By the end of that event, things were improving, but the frustration was still clear.

"I don't feel..." he said at the time, pausing while he reached for the right words. "I don't feel free in my driving. All the time I feel a little defensive, reacting. I try to drive the car really clean, but you know with these cars and this pace is so fast - you have to be perfect or you are a little bit nowhere."

He would know; for a decade he did nothing but be perfect.

Corsica came and brought real pressure. French newspaper L'Equipe dedicated a whole supplement to Ogier vs Loeb at home - the rematch after Loeb uncharacteristically slid off the road and out of second place on the second stage last year.

This time around, he whacked a kerb on stage one and broke the suspension. This was a tricky one, so how did Adamo address what was a bit of a rookie error?

"I sat them down," he said. "And I started talking really serious. I said to them: 'We have spent a lot of time and a lot of money in simulation back in the factory; we did a lot of work and we have checked and double-checked and we have found out...'

"At this point they were both [Loeb and Elena] leaning right in and listening very carefully to me. '...We have found out that, if you don't crash in stage one you tend to go faster for the rest of the rally!'"

Loeb's frustration on Corsica was huge. Equally, the i20 Coupe WRC hasn't always been the easiest beast to tame on asphalt. It's fair to say that Neuville's Corsican win came against the odds and expectation. As the event progressed, Loeb struggled more and more with understeer and for a man who uses the front of the car as much as he does, that was difficult.

There was more of the same in Chile, his first time in the Hyundai on gravel. At shakedown he had very little to offer. He was angry with himself and with the apparent absence of speed.

But here's where the maestro did his thing. Instead of losing his head and binning the thing early in a reckless attempt just to chop seconds out of a stage time, he stepped back, took his time to understand what the car was doing and how it was working with the tyre on the slippery - yet still abrasive - roads.

"My team is impressed and working hard and harder to support this kind of guy" Andrea Adamo

As was the case in Sweden, you could see him doing the maths and putting the pieces together. Friday afternoon came and he absolutely flew. And kept on flying for the rest of the rally.

What Loeb showed in Chile was true class and experience. Now, lots of drivers in the WRC have experience, but only very few know precisely how and when to deploy it. How many changes did Loeb have to make to his pace notes after just two runs across a stretch of brand new road? Very few.

How many changes did he make to the car? Very few. The team raised it 3mm for the afternoon and there was maybe a click here and there for finetuning, but the rest came from Loeb's deep-rooted ability to draw on similar situations and find the right solution.

Loeb in Chile was almost as good as he's ever been. And that's good enough for Adamo, who admits the Loeb's efforts are already telling on the team around him.

"It's motivation for all of us," he says. "When you see somebody like that, who won nine titles, yet is changing their approach in preparing for rallies. Now they are focusing on watching videos and doing things they didn't do in the past. Doing things in a different way and learning from the younger guys around them [about] how to do these things. He is evolving and changing. And when somebody like him can evolve and change in this way, then it's up to my team and I to change things as well.

"My team is impressed and working hard and harder to support this kind of guy. If someone like him will put himself in doubt and try to improve, then we, who have won nothing, we have to improve even more."

The biggest problem for Hyundai is that this week's Rally Portugal is Loeb's fifth rally in a six-event contract for 2019. He's not keen on doing any more events. He gives 100% when he's on-event, but the days of standing carrousel-side waiting for bags at far-flung airports or chasing championships to the world's four corners? Those days are done.

Adamo, however, has a plan. And that plan is to make Loeb even more comfortable in the team, in the car and with life back on the WRC in general.

"If you are comfortable and you are enjoying this life," he says, "then maybe you might like to do some more..."

Unless you're called Hayden or Craig, seeing more of Loeb - salt-and-pepper stubble or not - could only be a good thing. The absence of Paddon and Breen, especially in the face of such relative mediocrity at rallying's highest level overall, is another column for another time.