the curse continues for Sébastien Loeb, forced to abandon

The ninth participation will not be good for Sébastien Loeb. The French driver was forced to abandon the 2025 Dakar in Saudi Arabia due to damage suffered by his Dacia in his third stage accident on Tuesday January 7.

For his ninth attempt in the event, the nine-time world rally champion once again failed to win his first title in this prestigious desert race, so often approached but never crowned (3^e in 2019 and 2024, 2^e in 2017, 2022 and 2023). The curse of the Dakar therefore continues for the 50-year-old Alsatian who must resolve for the third time to abandon the race along the way, after 2018 and 2021.

At kilometer 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.

At each Dakar, its new Stations of the Cross

“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 (a lot of time) »regretted Sébastien Loeb at the finish of the special. The French driver finished the day’s course in 4 h 20 min 12 s, more than an hour after the winner, the young South African Saood Variawa.

“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 »finally said the race management on his X account. Sébastien Loeb “does not want to comment on this decision this evening. He is clearly very disappointed”the Dacia team informed the press.

Each Dakar has its own new Stations of the Cross. “We often had mechanical problems which caused us to lose time, sometimes stupid things on my part, also navigation errors. And every year I got one of the three”diagnosed Sébastien Loeb at the finish of the Dakar-2024.

During the second stage, the dreaded “48 hours”, a fan problem caused the engine to overheat and forced it to limit its speed. He finished the stage more than fifteen minutes behind the winner. During the 2024 edition, the Alsatian estimates having lost at least two hours with a combo of three factors: twisted front right triangle during the eleventh stage, navigation error on the eighth and a shaky strategy during the fifth.

Change of stable

His exit from the event on Tuesday 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 over.

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For this edition, Sébastien Loeb moved from Prodrive to the Dacia team, a newcomer to the Dakar. 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 s ahead of the Qatari Nasser Al-Attiyah (Dacia) and 9 min 34 s ahead of the Swede Mattias Ekström ( Ford).

Read also | One Dakar too many for Sébastien Loeb?

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The World with AFP

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