The curse of the Dakar continues for Sébastien Loeb: the French driver was forced to abandon the Dakar-2025 in Saudi Arabia due to the damage suffered by his Dacia in his accident on the 3rd stage.
“It’s over for Loeb and Lurquin (…) Victim of an accident at kilometer 12, the roll bar of the Dacia Sandrider is damaged. Inspection by FIA technical stewards led to start ban for stage 4 »indicated the direction of the race on his X account.
For his ninth participation, the nine-time world rally champion therefore once again fails to win his first title in this prestigious race in the desert, so often approached but never crowned (3rd in 2019 and 2024, 2nd in 2017, 2022 and 2023 ).
This is the third time that the 50-year-old Alsatian has had to abandon the Dakar midway, after 2018 and 2021.
Sébastien Loeb “does not want to comment on this decision this evening. He is clearly very disappointed”the Dacia team told the press.
At km 12 of the 327 of today’s special between Bisha and Al Henakiyah, Loeb’s Dacia crossed the road after a bad bounce and carried out several impressive rollovers, which seriously damaged the vehicle.
The Frenchman and his Belgian co-driver Fabian Lurquin restarted after a five-minute stop and repairs, but the consequences of the accident were felt for the rest of the race.
“We were able to continue but suddenly the steering link broke, I think because of the rollover (…) Then we had a problem with the engine overheating. We tried to finish the stage. We got there but in the end we lost an hour”he regretted at the finish of the special.
Sainz also out
Carlos Sainz before his retirement during the 2nd stage of the Dakar on the road to Bisha, January 6, 2025 / Valery HACHE / AFP
“It’s not our favorite day, we lose an hour, we say to ourselves that it’s crap. That’s how it is, we’ll have to continue. We will ride and we will see, even if aiming for victory becomes complicated”he admitted a few hours before the warning shot from the federation fell.
Sébastien Loeb finished the course in 4h 20min 12 sec, more than an hour after the winner of the day, the young South African Saood Variawa.
“I think that an intelligent race avoiding excesses and bullshit would surely pay off”however, the driver with ice blue eyes philosophized to the AFP before the start of the race.
His exit from the race comes the day after the abandonment of the title holder, Carlos Sainz, for similar reasons. The Spaniard had to reluctantly abandon the Dakar due to damage to his roll bar after his Ford Raptor rolled during the « 48h chrono ».
For this edition, the driver moved from Prodrive to the Dacia team, a newcomer to the Dakar.
Saood Variawa’s Toyota Hilux during the prologue of the Dakar in Bisha, January 3, 2025 / Valery HACHE / AFP/Archives
Learning from his past mechanical problems, technical improvements had been made to his car compared to his previous vehicles, such as strengthening the half-wheels or moving the exhaust pipes which heated the tires.
After three stages of the Dakar-2025, the South African Henk Lategan (Toyota) retains the lead in the provisional general classification, 7 min 17 sec ahead of the Qatari Nasser al-Attiyah (Dacia) and 9 min 34 sec ahead of the Swede Mattias Ekström ( Ford).
