Sébastien Loeb forced to retire!

Carlos Sainz on Monday, Sébastien Loeb on Tuesday: the Dakar recorded two major retirements in quick succession, in both cases following a decision by the commissioners following an accident which damaged the car's roll bar.

The Frenchman alternated days with and days without from the start, and this third stage had clearly gone wrong from the start. At km 12, Loeb actually rolled over, following a kick on a bleed by which he was surprised. Although the damage initially seemed limited to his Dacia Sandrider, despite two crazy tires that had to be replaced at the time, a series of problems disrupted the rest of his day.

Broken steering rod, spare part lost at the scene of the accident, then a repair made possible thanks to the help of his teammate Cristina Gutiérrez when she joined him: Loeb thought he had overcome the problems in the sixties first kilometers, but that was without counting on problems with overheating and a lack of power for the rest of the stage. Result: one hour behind the winner of the special at the finish. “It’s the Dakar: merciless”, he will summarize on his social networks.

And it wasn't over, since the Sandrider still had to go through an official inspection to ensure that it had not suffered any crippling damage in the eyes of the FIA ​​technical stewards. However, late in the evening at Al Henakiyah, the verdict was in: like Carlos Sainz yesterday, Sébastien Loeb is not authorized to leave, his car showing a deformation of the roll bar, damage that the regulations do not authorize repairs.

“According to the FIA ​​technical delegate, taking into account the damage to the safety cage, and on the basis of Article 283-1 of Appendix J [du règlement]it is not safe to authorize the competitor to continue the event”, indicates the official decision rendered Tuesday evening, stating the end of the race for Sébastien Loeb and his navigator Fabian Lurquin.

Before this decision, Sébastien Loeb had fallen back to 16th place in the general classification, an hour and a quarter behind leader Henk Lategan, and judged that aiming for victory would be “complicated”. However, he had already erased on Monday a significant delay incurred the day before with cooling problems and could hope to erase his deficit by counting on the long remaining route, and in particular the marathon stage which is looming tomorrow. Finally, his ninth participation earned him a third retirement in this event which also took him to second place three times and third place twice.

For Dacia, the addition is steep at the start of the rally since the team has already recorded the abandonment of Gutiérrez, who did not complete the 48-hour stage although she was then able to restart in order to serve as a water carrier once your car is repaired at the bivouac. In the absence of Loeb now, Nasser Al-Attiyah will be the only representative of the team still in the race, occupying second place this evening, 7'17 behind the leader.