The Dakar Rally, formerly known as the Paris-Dakar
\nRally, needs no further introduction. An off-road car and motorbike
\ncompetition, the rally was first held in 1978 after the French racer Thierry
\nSabine got lost in the dessert, which is when he realised this sandy terrain
\nwas perfect for a car race. The competition initially started from the French
\ncapital Paris and finished in Dakar, in Senegal, but in time, for various
\nreasons, the start and finish and even the route itself have changed. For
\nexample, the rally moved to South
\nAmerica in 2009 because of terrorist threats in Mauritania, and, from 2020, to Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
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Hundreds of car, bike, quad and truck racers are
\ntaking part in this extraordinary adventure that will see them race for over
\n8,000 km. And from 2025, the Romanian brand Dacia will be among them, competing
\nas a manufacturer. Its car entry will run on synthetic test fuel supplied by
\nthe Saudi giant Aramco, an energy company evaluated at over 2,000 billion
\ndollars. Moreover, officially racing for Dacia will be none other than the
\nnine-time French rally world champion S\u00e9bastien Loeb, together with the Spanish
\nrally driver Cristina Guti\u00e9rrez Herrero. They will put the Dacia prototypes to
\nthe test next year at the Morocco Rally. The cars they will be driving will be
\nunveiled at the beginning of 2024. Aged 49, S\u00e9bastien Loeb holds a number of
\nrecords at the World Rally Championship, while 31-year-old Cristina Guti\u00e9rrezHerrero became the first Spanish woman to finish the
\nDakar Rally in the car category in 2017. <\/p>\n
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As for Dacia, whose affordable cars are selling very
\nwell, it seeks to promote its new off-road identity at the Dakar Rally, itself
\na test lab for new technology and more recently also for low carbon emission
\nmobility alternatives. Dacia is aiming high, wanting to finish in the top
\nplaces. In parallel, Dacia, which is owned by the Renault group, will launch a
\nnew SUV, bigger and more stylish than its current Duster, which will be called
\nBigster, and which is especially designed to appeal to wealthier customers in
\nGermany or the UK. After being taken over the French group Renault in 1999 and
\nrelaunched in 2004 with the Logan model, Dacia is today a well-known player on
\nthe European car market. (CM)<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From 2025, Dacia will compete as a manufacturer in the Dakar Rally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":96208,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[40939],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-96207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-racing"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n