The FIA says it was left with no alternative but to disqualify Dacia Sandriders’ Sébastien Loeb from the 2025 Dakar Rally following his high-speed crash on stage three.
Loeb was excluded from the event on safety grounds after a safety delegate inspection on his car found that the roll cage was damaged, thus preventing it from taking part in the remainder of the rally.
The team had signalled its intent to appeal the decision within the 96 hours period as mandated by the FIA sporting regulations but elected to withdraw this on Wednesday morning prior to stage four from Al Henakiyah to AlUla.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, Loeb said his disqualification was “hard to swallow” because “in my opinion, it’s not based on solid arguments”.
The FIA’s cross-country and regional rallies category manager Jérôme Roussel refuted this, and Dacia’s claim that the damaged section in question had not been an integral part of the roll cage.
“It is, actually, because the roll cage is made of the main roll bar, which is the one behind the seats, and then you have two lateral roll bars,” Roussel told DirtFish.
“And the damaged part is one of them, and then you have the tube linking the two lateral roll bars at the top of the windscreen, and these four parts are the most important parts when you look at the homologation regulations for safety cages.
“So, it is an important part.”
Roussel also said that the decision to disqualify Loeb’s car was based on safety grounds and therefore Dacia could not submit a suspensive appeal as a result.
“You can always argue that maybe it’s safer enough to continue, but the rule is there,” Roussel said. “The rule is really hard, I know this. And at the end, Dacia didn’t want to retire the car, so we had to put the case to the stewards who decided to disqualify the car.
“So, it’s very simple; as soon as the roll cage is damaged, as soon as the tube is bent, the roll cage is not considered OK. And as you cannot realistically repair the roll cage on site, then the car cannot continue. That’s as simple as this.
Dacia lodged an intention to appeal the DSQ, but because it was a safety issue the decision couldn't be suspended
“And then Dacia lodged an intention to appeal that they need to confirm within the next 96 hours. Let’s see. But as soon as it’s a safety issue, you cannot have a suspensive appeal. So, the car couldn’t restart this morning.
“And that’s it. So that’s unfortunate. Nobody’s pleased with this. Everybody is disappointed with this situation, but it is what it is.”
Both Loeb and [Carlos] Sainz believed that the damage to their roll cages could have been repaired sufficiently to return to the race, while Century Racing’s [Laia] Sanz was condemned to her first Dakar retirement in 15 attempts after her roll cage was distorted by a mere 2mm.
Roussel accepted that finding a clear definition in future cross-country technical regulations will be ‘hard’ but stood by the safety grounds on which all three were withdrawn.
“We speak about three cars because these cars are driven by superstars, but we don’t speak about the, I don’t know, 10, 15 cars who have been inspected and were able to continue despite the crash,” Roussel added.
“So, it makes noise, but actually this happens very often. Of course, we are always keen to think collectively, to find solutions to improve the rules, but in my opinion, it will be very hard to find a solution which can define what is the acceptable bend of a tube.
“Because when it’s bent, it means that the material started to be damaged. So, at which level, we don’t know. If another crash is happening at the same place, what will happen, we don’t know, and we don’t want to know, actually.”
