Sébastien Loeb will drive a Dacia in the Dakar 2025

The announcements keep coming in rally-raid! After Ford who confirmed their upcoming participation in the Dakar 2024, it is the Romanian brand owned by Renault that has announced its arrival on the tracks of the world’s largest rally-raid starting from 2025.

Dacia, furthermore, does not do things halfway as Sébastien Loeb will be part of this adventure. The Alsatian will have Spanish driver Cristina Gutiérrez as his teammate, the second woman to win a stage in the Dakar after Jutta Kleinschmidt, who won the event in 2001 in the car category.

Loeb already has 7 participations in the Dakar with 4 podium finishes. Second in the last edition in January, he is one of the fastest drivers with notably 7 stage wins in 2023. Often plagued by bad luck in winning the race, Loeb now relies on his new team competing in the premier category, T1+, to achieve his goals.

« I always have a thirst for new challenges and I couldn’t pass this one up. I am happy to join Dacia after the Dakar 2024 and eager to start the adventure to reach our common goal by 2025: winning the Dakar » he declared on his Twitter account.

As for the car that will be raced by Dacia, it will be a prototype using a synthetic fuel produced by Aramco. The brand will rely on the tuner Prodrive to design its racing car, with the first tests scheduled for early 2024.

Dacia will aim for victory in its first participation in 2025, to allow the Renault group to reclaim the top spot on the Dakar podium, following its only success in 1982 with a Renault 20 driven by the Marreau brothers.

J’ai toujours autant soif de nouveaux challenges et je ne pouvais pas passer à côté de celui-là 🤜🏻🤛🏻

Je suis heureux de rejoindre #Dacia après le Dakar 2024 et impatient de commencer l’aventure pour atteindre notre objectif commun dès 2025: remporter le @dakar ⭐ pic.twitter.com/vFbuaNZ3dM

— Sébastien Loeb (@SebastienLoeb) July 3, 2023