Dacia cools Dakar hopes after 1-2 debut in Rally du Maroc

Dacia Sandriders technical director Philippe Dunabin has downplayed expectations for the team’s debut performance at the Dakar Rally despite finishing 1-2 in its debut at the Rallye du Maroc.

The Romanian manufacturer has partnered with Prodrive to take part in the World Rally Raid Championship (WR2C), which also includes a tilt at the Dakar, starting in Saudi Arabia on January 3. Nasser Al-AttiyahSébastien Loeb and Christina Gutierrez are onboard to conduct the three-car entry.

After the competition moved to Morocco in October as a live test, five-time Dakar winners Al-Attiyah and Loeb scored 1–2 despite suffering minor problems such as cooling issues, while Gutierrez finished 1–2 in the long run. Repurposed components for lasting performance. Use.

Despite the strong results out of the box, however, Dunabin has insisted there is no expectation of victory in the Dakar.

Asked what the goal was, Dunabin said: “It’s to do as good as we can. There is no assumption on Dacia’s part that Dacia can come and win straight away.

“We obviously hope we have the momentum, we just don’t know what you need to do to get the experience and know that you have the credibility that will take you that distance.

“So I think to start with, Dacia probably thought we could go and get a run, get experience and whatever – maybe expectations got a bit high because of the results in Morocco .

“But there is no compulsion that we directly deliver a winning result. It would be great if we did, but there’s no guesswork.

“We broke down, we had to struggle, it wasn’t all easy. It may sound overwhelming but we definitely had some challenges.

“From some points of view it’s like ‘you win, the job is done, you can just go to Dakar and that’s it’ but there is still a lot of work to do. “We still have a lot of important components to look at.”

Looking back at the tests carried out on Gutierrez’s car, in which he finished the Moroccan event 78th overall, Dunabin told Autosport: “There were certain elements of the car – particularly on Christina’s car – that were used for testing and we did not replace components we knew were not in as good condition as they could have been.

“The reason why you do it is because you can go and test and learn a lot of things, but there’s nothing like actually doing the events.

“So you take components that you know are probably going to have a normal lifetime longer than you think, you drop them on the car and you go and rally Morocco with it because that gives you that “You get the margin you look for when you’re on Dakar.”

Chief mechanic Alistair Gibson said: “It was really important for the team that we faced some challenges on one of the cars.

“The car was the test car, we were doing endurance testing on that car anyway, we knew it, and it was something we had to find out the hard way.

“We also, when we had some little challenges, how the team reacted, it’s a really good learning for everyone because when it’s at the Dakar, you need to be fast.”