Sébastien Loeb's World Rally Championship comeback looks highly unlikely to continue into next season unless he commits to a full-time drive, according to Citroën team boss Pierre Budar.
Budar says he is reluctant to allow the nine-time champion to compete again on a part-time basis as Loeb is doing this season, as part of a three-round programme that includes Mexico and Corsica earlier this year and is set to conclude at Rally Catalunya in October.
Despite being absent from full-time WRC competition for six years the 44-year-old led in Mexico in 2017 until a puncture and he also took a number of stage wins in Corsica.
But Budar wants a more consistent approach to Citroen’s 2019 line-up after Craig Breen had to step aside for Loeb's appearances this year.
Budar did make clear that he would welcome Loeb back full-time, he all but ruled out another cameo role, saying: "Something I don't want to reproduce is to have him for one rally. He has stopped rallying because of something, so I don't see how we can restart knowing he has stopped because of some reasons – it was boring him or I don't know what.
"It's a good idea to have Seb for the full season, but I don't think it is a good thing to have some drivers for only some rallies because we need to build a consistent organisation."
Loeb has a full-time 2018 programme with Peugeot's works World RX Championship team, and took his first WRX win in over a year at Mettet in Belgium a fortnight ago. He was also part of Peugeot's assault on the Dakar Rally effort before that ended this year.
Loeb had originally quit the WRC after 12 years, trying to find something that demanded less of his time, initially moving into the World Touring Car Championship.
Earlier this year, Loeb said: "I am doing the rallycross with Peugeot and I cannot do everything. When I retired from the full WRC championship I know the reason why and that has not changed. Now I come, I drive and it's cool, but to do all the championship, I don't know – it's not the plan."
