Dacia targets Dakar glory after a debut win in Morocco
It’s Romania-mania as the Prodrive-run Dacia Sandrider takes a 1-2 on its World Rally-Raid Championship entrance, ahead of next year’s Dakar
Dacia’s first foray into motor sport was an announcement of its intentions.
Dacia’s bid to win the Dakar Rally at its first attempt looks on track following an impressive dress rehearsal on Rally Morocco in October. The Prodrive-built and run Sandrider claimed a 1-2 result on the five-stage rally raid, with Nasser Al-Attiyah leading Sébastien Loeb to complete a perfect start to the Renault-owned Romanian budget car brand’s first campaign in motor sport.
The victory ensured five-time Dakar conqueror Al-Attiyah wrapped up a third consecutive World Rally-Raid Championship, following wins earlier this year in Abu Dhabi and Portugal in Prodrive’s Hunter T1+. Loeb, who has yet to win the Dakar, having finished runner-up three times, came back from a crash on the prologue and then a broken steering arm to finish second in Morocco. The third Sandrider driven by 2022 Extreme E champion Cristina Gutiérrez was classified well down the order.
It was a seventh win in the Morocco Rally for Nasser Al-Attiyah
“The Sandriders ran well on all the different terrains,” reported team principal Tiphanie Isnard. “Rally Morocco is more or less a small Dakar. We had dunes, rocky tracks, mountain terrain. The drivers said they were comfortable with the car.”
But Isnard added that Dacia’s contender faced overheating troubles in temperatures that hit 45°C. “We need to work hard on the cooling systems because we’ll face such temperatures on the Dakar too,” she said.
The Morocco win came just five months after Prodrive’s latest rally-raider first turned a wheel. Now, after an intense summer of testing, final preparations are underway before the cars are shipped to Saudi Arabia for the 2025 Dakar, which starts on January 3. When asked whether a debut victory is the target, Isnard said: “We want it. When you are a competitor there is only one goal. But we know in history a manufacturer rarely arrives for the first time and wins.”