The Dakar Rally, formerly known as the Paris-Dakar
Rally, needs no further introduction. An off-road car and motorbike
competition, the rally was first held in 1978 after the French racer Thierry
Sabine got lost in the dessert, which is when he realised this sandy terrain
was perfect for a car race. The competition initially started from the French
capital Paris and finished in Dakar, in Senegal, but in time, for various
reasons, the start and finish and even the route itself have changed. For
example, the rally moved to South
America in 2009 because of terrorist threats in Mauritania, and, from 2020, to Saudi Arabia.
Hundreds of car, bike, quad and truck racers are
taking part in this extraordinary adventure that will see them race for over
8,000 km. And from 2025, the Romanian brand Dacia will be among them, competing
as a manufacturer. Its car entry will run on synthetic test fuel supplied by
the Saudi giant Aramco, an energy company evaluated at over 2,000 billion
dollars. Moreover, officially racing for Dacia will be none other than the
nine-time French rally world champion Sébastien Loeb, together with the Spanish
rally driver Cristina Gutiérrez Herrero. They will put the Dacia prototypes to
the test next year at the Morocco Rally. The cars they will be driving will be
unveiled at the beginning of 2024. Aged 49, Sébastien Loeb holds a number of
records at the World Rally Championship, while 31-year-old Cristina GutiérrezHerrero became the first Spanish woman to finish the
Dakar Rally in the car category in 2017.
As for Dacia, whose affordable cars are selling very
well, it seeks to promote its new off-road identity at the Dakar Rally, itself
a test lab for new technology and more recently also for low carbon emission
mobility alternatives. Dacia is aiming high, wanting to finish in the top
places. In parallel, Dacia, which is owned by the Renault group, will launch a
new SUV, bigger and more stylish than its current Duster, which will be called
Bigster, and which is especially designed to appeal to wealthier customers in
Germany or the UK. After being taken over the French group Renault in 1999 and
relaunched in 2004 with the Logan model, Dacia is today a well-known player on
the European car market. (CM)
