Paul Rouget, Media365: published on Friday January 3, 2025 at 2:11 p.m.
Seventh in the Dakar prologue after a “not easy” special, Sébastien Loeb, who is aiming for a first coronation in the rally-raid, was not unhappy with his debut.
First third, then sixth, Sébastien Loeb finally achieved the seventh time in the prologue of the Dakar, scheduled for Friday around Bisha (Saudi Arabia). Alongside his Belgian co-driver Fabian Lurquin in their Dacia Sandrider, the Alsatian finished 33 seconds behind the best time, set by South African Henk Lategan (Toyota). Unlike the Belgian Guillaume de Mevius (Mini), Loeb was able to avoid the puncture, “the problem of Saudi Arabia”, as he later explained. “Last year, I punctured a lot of times without expecting it, without having any signs, without necessarily passing over stones or having any signs, that’s the problem here, we know that,” he said. -he repeated after crossing the finish line.
-“It’s going to be long.”
The nine-time winner of the World Rally Championship also mentioned these small bushes which, “at high speed, quickly cause damage. I hit a small one but it's okay, it's plastic and carbon. Otherwise we have well done, we did a good special, it was not an easy special for a prologue, even in terms of navigation, and the visibility of the tracks, it was not easy. So there you have it, we did what we did. could. It's not bad.” But Loeb now expects to suffer. “It's going to be long. In the 48 hours we're going to have a “neutral” where potentially we'll be able to put new wheels, but there will be 800 terminals behind with the wheels that we will have on the car, it's not going to be simple,” he admits again.
“Everyone is harassing us”
Three times second and twice third in the Dakar, Sébastien Loeb, for whom “the sensations are good”, hopes that this time it will be good, even if “in the end, it is the Dakar which will choose its winner”, said declared Fabian Lurquin to La Libre Belgique. “Everyone is harassing us, asking us if it’s finally the right one in 2025. But “Seb” and I don’t think like that. We’re going to focus on ourselves,” he insists.
