Sébastien Loeb is ‘optimistic’ that the new Dacia Sandriders have the pace to fight for overall victory in the Dakar Rally which kicks off with the first of 12 stages tomorrow in Saudi Arabia.
Loeb, who has finished on the Dakar podium five times but never won the event, has been instrumental in the development of the Sandrider T1+ car since moving across from former Prodrive outfit Bahrain Raid Xtreme last year.
The nine-time World Rally champion finished second to team-mate Nasser Al-Attiyah in the final round of the 2024 World Rally-Raid Championship in Morocco in October and reckons the team has the performance to match its rivals over the fortnight-long Dakar.
“The feeling is good,” Loeb told DirtFish. “I am happy to come back to the Dakar; for sure, it’s a new car but the first experience with the car was good in Morocco.
Loeb has driven for Peugeot and Bahrain Raid Xtreme before, but this year starts a new journey with Dacia
“Maybe some of the brands were not trying to show all of their performance in Morocco, but we didn’t hide anything, and we were pushing the maximum all rally.
“For sure, I was happy with the pace from my side, and we saw that the pace was very close with the others; it’s not like we were leading easily, it was always very tight with the others so it will be interesting.
“It was a real test for us to see where we were, and we wanted to push 100% as if it were the Dakar.
“The plan was to try and be as hard with the car as possible, to see if it was strong. It was strong but maybe not enough in some areas like the wishbones and stuff like that, but the good thing is we now have strong ones for the Dakar.”
While the pace of the car proved strong, both Loeb and the third member of the Dacia Sandriders, Cristina Gutiérrez, suffered suspension issues during the Morocco event, but the team is confident these problems have been resolved by reinforcing the components.
Much like rivals M-Sport Ford, Dacia also battled high cockpit temperatures both in testing and race conditions in Morocco which both teams hope to be able to rectify for Dakar, which isn’t expected to produce the same peak ambient temperatures as Morocco in October did.
Despite these teething issues, Loeb remains upbeat about the performance level of the Sandrider.
“We were quite satisfied, even though we still have a bit of an issue with the temperatures inside the cockpit, so we know that we have a lot of things to work on,” Loeb said.
“But the team have continued to work on the car and find solutions. We cannot be 100% confident but from what we say [in Morocco] the signs are good, and we are quite optimistic.”
Consistent and trouble-free Dakar the key to victory
Since making the transition to rally raid and the Dakar Rally, Loeb has had an up-and-down relationship with the event.
A total of 28 stage wins is proof that the pace has always been there, but Loeb has equally had his fair share of bad fortune on the event, most notably in 2018 with Peugeot when he was forced out after a heavy crash on stage five which injured navigator Daniel Elena.
Loeb pointed to former Citroën WRC team-mate Carlos Sainz’s fourth Dakar victory in 2024 as an example of finding the right balance between attack and preservation.
Loeb's old WRC team-mate proved last year that speed isn't everything at Dakar
“The key to every Dakar is to try and do the rally avoiding all of the major problems,” said Loeb.
“For me, nearly every time, we had some kind of issue with the car, or I made a mistake in the driving or the co-driving. So, to win the Dakar the most important thing is to do a clean race for two weeks, without any big troubles.
“You saw with Carlos last year, he won the rally without winning any stages, but at the end, he was very consistent.
“So, it is like this that it works, and maybe you will need quite a bit of luck also because we have the 48-Hour stage on day two.
“We will have to face punctures as usual and there will be no motorbike lines either for some [split] stages in the dunes, so if you are the first car you will lose a lot of time I think; road order will be playing a big role.
“All of the things you need to put together and it is very difficult to predict at the moment and I don’t have the solution right now.”
