Sébastien Loeb suffered another setback in the 2025 Dakar Rally, losing over an hour following a barrel-roll in the third stage from Bisha to Al Henakiyah.
Having recovered more than 15 minutes after electrical issues during the 48-hour chrono, Loeb and navigator Fabian Lurquin started the third stage seventh on the road but lost control of their Dacia Sandriders machine on a kicker inside 12km of the 327km test.
The car was pitched into a series of rolls before landing upright on his wheels with substantial bodywork damage.
Loeb got going again but was forced into a second stop to make further repairs to the front of the car, with assistance from the sister Dacia Sandrider of Cristina Gutiérrez and Pablo Moreno Huete.
Much like on Sunday, Moreno Huete’s mechanical expertise came to the fore as he helped Loeb change a steering arm before restarting.
Neither Loeb nor Lurquin were injured in the accident but the time loss of over 50 minutes all but ends their victory hopes.
“We arrived in a little ditch that was a danger, but I don’t know if we were in the track or if the track was wrong, but it was not in the notes, and I got a little kick,” Loeb explained. “It was not too high, but the problem was that the car landed on the side and the car rolled.
“We had two tires off the rim, but we were able to change it quickly in five minutes. Then it was correct, we could continue and then suddenly the front steering arm broke and I think it was because of the roll, but we didn’t have the spare part because we lost it in the roll.
“So, we had to wait for Cristina to arrive so we could repair it and then we had a problem with the engine temperature, the engine was always too hot which reduced the power. So, we just tried to finish the stage which we did but we lost one hour.”
Loeb managed to continue but is now all but out of the running
It is the latest in a series of disappointments for Loeb on the Dakar Rally: he fought for overall victory in the 2018 edition as part of the Peugeot factory team before rolling out while a similar incident all but ended his chances in 2023 with Prodrive’s Bahrain Raid Xtreme outfit.
Subject to passing the FIA’s scrutineering – which put paid to M-Sport’s Carlos Sainz’s event on Monday – Loeb and Lurquin should be able to return to action for stage four on Wednesday.
M-Sport’s Mattias Ekström was the first car to arrive after Loeb’s accident.
“It’s a part of the game, we are all pushing very hard, and it can happen,” Ekström said.
“I saw the place where he crashed, it was a ditch and for sure he hit that one. Anyway, it was a good way on our side, we did our best to drive smart, but we made a little mistake on the navigation and took one puncture, but we are happy.”
In contrast to the 48-hour chrono, day three was a predominantly fast stage mixed with technical and often invisible pistes, which may have contributed to Loeb’s incident.
Notably, the opening 90km featured what the organizers described as “slow and technical with dust” with the pace increasing thereafter.
The stage was won by Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Saood Variawa, who bounced back from a heavy head-on collision with team-mate Giniel de Villiers in stage two, to set the fastest time.
The young South African was 23s quicker than Guerlain Chicherit with Guillaume de Mévius initially third fastest but dropping to fourth with a 1m10s penalty.
Variawa was engaged in a lively scrap with TGR team-mates Lucas Moraes and Seth Quintero but, when both dropped time in the final section, Variawa was left to take the stage win alongside navigator François Cazalet.
In the overall standings, Henk Lategan continues to lead for Toyota, with Nasser Al-Attiyah second for Dacia Sandriders, 7m17s adrift.
Ekström and Emil Bergkvist lie third, 9m34s off the lead but having moved up a position at the expense of Overdrive Racing’s Yazeed Al Rajhi who endured a tough day from second on the road.
Overall Classification (after stage 3)
1 Henk Lategan/Brett Cummings (Toyota Gazoo Racing) 19h04m53s
2 Nasser Al-Attiyah/Edouard Boulanger (Dacia Sandriders) +7m17s
3 Mattias Ekström/Emil Bergkvist (M-Sport Ford) +9m34s
4 Yazeed Al Rajhi/Tom Gottschalk (Overdrive Racing Toyota) +11m45s
5 Lucas Moraes/Armand Monleon (Toyota Gazoo Racing) +19m40s
6 Toby Price/Sam Sunderland (Overdrive Racing Toyota) +20m17s
7 Mathieu Serradori/Loïc Minaudier (Century Racing CR7) +21m15s
8 Mitch Guthrie Jr/Kellon Walch (M-Sport Ford) +23m40s
9 João Ferreira/Filipe Palmeiro (X-raid Mini JCW) +32m07s
10 Seth Quintero/Dennis Zenz (Toyota Gazoo Racing) +35m04s
