Loeb: Let’s take into account all our experiences working with the new machine

This year, Sébastien Loeb, nine-time world rally champion, once again failed to conquer the Dakar, although he still reached the podium at the end of the supermarathon and took third place.

61-year-old Carlos Sainz won, becoming the oldest driver to achieve this, and Loeb was one of the first to sincerely congratulate his opponent on the achievement. And as an afterword to the 2024 Dakar, we can quote the words of the Frenchman, spoken after the finish in an interview with Auto Hebdo. It is worth recalling that this is the fifth podium for Sébastien and the third in a row: he finished second in 2017, 2022 and 2023 and took third place in 2019 and 2024.

Sebastien Loeb: “This happened for many reasons: due to punctures, due to a broken tie rod at the start of the rally, due to a broken control arm in the penultimate stage. It wasn’t easy, but we kept fighting and still reached the podium, so we’re not complaining. Either way we should have finished second or third.

But we already have enough second places in Dakar! We had to change our position on the stage, but we went the wrong way, making another navigation error! (laughs)

Of course we did our best every day, but not everything worked out and luck was not always with us. However, we know that this is also part of the Dakar. But this is partly due to the preparation for the rally attack, so now we want to pay maximum attention to our next car to avoid all kinds of small problems that lead to loss of time. This is our most important project for the coming season.

There are no tensions in relations with Prodrive (the British company that built the Hunter SUV that Loeb raced). We know that our car is fast and powerful, but not durable enough. There was no room for error, and when everything goes right, everything is great. However, when she hits rocks, she is shown to be inferior in strength to her opponents’ equipment.

We will try to take this experience into account when working with our new machine. The project is already planned for the whole year, so now we are focusing on the future.”

The project Sebastien Loeb is talking about is a factory program of Dacia, the Romanian division of the Renault group, which will debut in the T1+ category during the 2025 Dakar. The development and preparation of the machines is carried out by the same British company Prodrive. Intensive testing of the future off-road prototype is planned for 2024, and Loeb’s partners are Nasser Al-Attiyah and Spanish racer Cristina Gutierrez Herrero, who just won the Dakar in the T3 category (this year it was called Challenger) .