Dacia will take part in the Dakar Rally for the first time in 2025, with nine-time world champion Sebastien Loeb and Spanish female driver Cristina Gutierrez at the wheel, the brand announced this week.
The 49-year-old Loeb is yet to win the Dakar, finishing second in 2022. He won the last of his nine consecutive WRC titles in 2012 before semi-retiring from the championship.
Gutierrez became the first ever Spanish woman to complete the Dakar in 2017.
Aged just 31, she has already participated in 7 Dakar Rallies between 2017 and 2023. Cristina has also been the all-terrain rally champion (women's category) in Spain since 2012.
Romanian manufacturer Dacia will set out to win the race and "does not want to finish fifth or sixth", said CEO Denis Le Vot.
The Dacia prototype race car will run on synthetic test fuel supplied by Aramco, a world leader in the energy and chemicals sector.
Aramco’s synthetic fuel solutions are produced by combining renewable hydrogen with captured CO2, resulting in a lower-carbon, drop-in fuel compatible with today’s engines.
Dacia sees the Dakar Rally as the ideal testing ground for this technology.
Denis Le Vot, CEO of Dacia, said: “Dacia and Dakar are a perfect match! Not only is this a test of Dacia's true robustness, but it is also a showing of our commitment to low-carbon mobility. We are very excited to take part in Dakar with synthetic fuel technology. Dacia, alongside the best team and drivers in the game, are serious contenders for the rally.”
Although the Dacia brand is not well known to South Africans, it produces the Renault Duster which is sold here, while one of the country’s top-selling bakkies, the Nissan NP200, is derived from a previous-generation Dacia product.
Agence France-Presse