2023-07-03 15:04:54
Already at the start of the Dakar seven times in his career, Sebastien Loeb will participate again in 2025, this time with a Dacia. The Renault group brand will take part in its first Dakar in two years. The Spaniard Cristina Gutierrez will also drive a Dacia. The Frenchman, nine-time WRC rally world champion, will test a prototype of the brand from the end of 2024 on the Rallye du Maroc.
The model will be prepared by the ProDrive team, already a partner of Sébastien Loeb in the World Rally-Raid Championship, of which the Dakar was the first round this year. The 49-year-old Alsatian, second in the event in 2023, will be accompanied by his co-driver Fabian Lurquin.
Dacia will give itself the necessary means in the race and “does not want to finish fifth or sixth”, underlined Dacia boss Denis Le Vot. The Dakar will also be “the priority” of Sébastien Loeb, said the driver, who has also joined the World Rallycross Championship (World RX). With Dacia, “the plan is to make the rally-raid championship in 2025-2026, it is important to progress”, indicated the Alsatian champion.
The second car of the Dacia team will therefore be entrusted to Cristina Gutiérrez, 31 years old. The young but experienced Spanish driver knows Loeb well, with whom she won the Extreme E electric 4×4 competition at the end of 2022. “He’s my mentor, he’s a legend,” said Cristina Gutiérrez. “And we get along very well, it’s important to develop the car”.
The two prototypes, whose model is to be unveiled in early 2024, will run on synthetic fuel, produced by combining hydrogen with carbon dioxide. Dacia has partnered for this fuel with the oil giant Saudi Aramco, a partner of Renault, and a public company in the country which has hosted the Dakar since 2020.
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