Sebastien Loeb: A hero's home-coming

There were two low points on last weekend's Rallye de France - three if you include a terror suspect being shot dead not far from our hotel - but the two that really caught the eye were both significant issues.

Mice. Two of them: one in Thursday night's restaurant and one on Sunday night. Sunday night's intruder had already suffered damage to its front-right (similar to Petter Solberg) and was finished with a not-exactly merciful smack over the head with a dustpan. The amazing thing about these two episodes was the way the French seemed entirely unmoved by the big-eared, short-legged ones.

The entire nation was, however, moved by another short-legged one.

Last year a lot of people turned out in Strasbourg to watch Rallye de France and were disappointed to see Alsatian Sebastien Loeb retire on the third stage. Sebastien Ogier did keep them amused for the remainder of the three days, but that wasn't really the point. Clearly, it was the wrong Seb and the wrong Citroen.

Not this time.

And this time it felt like all of France had come along. The crowds were just enormous. Watching fans come in to the Strasbourg Zenith (a concert venue on the edge of town - think 'tangoed' Albert Hall) was quite astonishing. They just kept coming.

Fortunately, the organisers had taken the precaution of reinforcing the barriers around the service park; without them all hell would have broken loose.

Loeb's not a natural man of the people. He still looks bemused by the constant attention he gets - he just drives his car faster than anybody else. But that's part of the appeal. He's not a man of the people, he's one of the people.

Just over two years ago, Rallye de France arrived in Strasbourg in an event pretty much tailor-made for Loeb. The route started in the city closest to where he'd grown up and then followed a route around his favourite roads and even through Haguenau, his place of birth. The World Rally Championship prepared itself for a tour through its champion's backyard. I wasn't sure about that. It wasn't that I didn't think Loeb deserved it, he absolutely did. It was just that I liked Corsica so much.

Loeb secured his ninth world title on the streets where he grew up © LAT

The French island had everything: all the history and even more corners. And now we were heading for a rally just a stone's throw from Rallye Deutschland offering stages entirely similar in nature.

I get it now.

And if I didn't get it before, I got it after an hour with Bernard Beguin on Sunday morning. Beguin works in France's governing body of motorsport (the FFSA) and is an integral part of Rallye de France.

When the conversation came around to the shift to the mainland, Beguin told me about the tension surrounding the vote between Ajaccio and Alsace.

"I voted for here," says Beguin, leaning in conspiratorially, as though he still wasn't sure the world should know this.

"And I love Corsica. As you know I competed there..."

We need some context here. Beguin didn't just compete in Corsica - he won it in 1987 in a Prodrive-run BMW M3. He finished on the podium twice more in a Porsche 911 and took on those ever-so-slightly insane lanes 11 times. In terms of French rallying and Corsican sporting folklore, Beguin is a true hero. He might have been born in Grenoble, but his success in that blue and white Beemer will always make him part-Corsican.

And he voted the event off the island.

"If this event had stayed in Corsica, it would have died," he adds. "It couldn't work."

Right on queue, deep inside the Zenith, sound systems are being checked and La Marseillaise resonates. Rallye de France certainly works here.

Six or seven hours later, the national anthem rang out real-time, with a packed house singing one song and bowing to the title-winning Loeb and his Citroen team before them. Having attended a few Olympic events and enjoyed Britain's immense summer of sport, the atmosphere last Sunday wasn't far short.

Beguin won the Tour de Corse in '87, but voted it off the WRC calendar © LAT

There was also a feeling that this was a nation saying thank you and au revoir. Loeb might be back for a cameo next year, but he'll never be back for a refitting of the crown he's monopolised for the past nine years.

Further down the field, there was another rally driver being fitted with a crown for the first time. Dolgellau's most famous Evans household is not unused to celebrating success on the stages. Gwyndaf Evans took the British title in 1996 and became a household name for rally fans, but last weekend his son Elfyn went a stage further and became a world champion when he won the FIA Academy Cup.

Evans has been sublime this year. OK, not so sublime when he put his Ford Fiesta R2 off the road in Portugal, but after that - and with Phil Pugh alongside - he won Acropolis, Finland, Germany and France back-to-back.

At the post-event press conference, Pugh joked about the similarity between their record and the dominance of Sebastien Loeb. Joking-aside, Evans's progress since Faro has been entirely Loeb-like. He's found pace where he needed to, seen off the opposition and then hit supreme consistency. In the past four rallies, he's looked every inch a world champion.

But what now? Now he has to decide between doing all the WRC rounds in 2013 in a Fiesta R2 car and a five-round WRC2 campaign in a Fiesta S2000/R5. It's got to be the four-wheel-drive route. As Ford team principal Malcolm Wilson says, we've seen how good he is in an R2 car, now let's see what he can do when all four wheels are driving.

And Wilson's excited about Evans as well. There's nobody in our sport more patriotic than MW and he's seen something special in Elfyn.

Academy winner Evans has a bright future in rallying © LAT

And staying briefly on the subject of the Academy, I do hope the FIA sees sense when it awards the contract for next year's renamed Junior World Rally Championship. Yes, it would be nice to see Peugeot coming in as a new manufacturer supporting the series with its 208 R2 and maybe there's something to be said for world champion Citroen getting the deal (although I find the prospect of running the high-tech and expensive DS3 R3 as an entry-level Academy car absurd in the extreme), but actually forget them both.

The deal simply has to go to M-Sport. And I'm not just saying this because I'm British, I'm saying this because the infrastructure the Cumbrian firm has put in place is second to none, the cars are reliable and competitive and Wilson and his people thoroughly deserve the deal.

When North One Sport went down the toilet at the start of the season, it was Wilson and M-Sport who saved the Academy from following it.

But now, back to France. It's quite possible that the Zenith is still rocking. Last time I looked Loeb and his co-driver Daniel Elena were standing on the roof belting out ZZ Top's Sharp Dressed Man with 12,000 backing singers.

And, undoubtedly, behind the scenes, those with shorter legs than Loeb were permitting themselves a wry smile. Before returning to the restaurant...