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Dacia has confirmed that from 2025 it will compete as a manufacturer in the World Rally-Raid Championship, culminating in the Dakar. It is the ultimate test of endurance and robustness and an adventure that has brought together more than 60 nationalities and 500 adventurers every year for over 40 years.
“The rally-raid is a human and sporting adventure, clearly in keeping with Dacia's brand territories: it is a robust and outdoor adventure at the wheel of a 4-wheel drive prototype developed to cope with the most extreme conditions; it’s an eco-smart adventure, with Dacia’s race car running on synthetic fuel, and an essential but cool adventure with an ambitious goal that leaves no room for the superfluous.”
It will become the testing lab for a whole range of Dacia ideas and an excellent opportunity to try out new clever solutions in terms of outdoor functionalities as well as energy choices. Dacia will approach the project with a reliance on the skills of the Renault Group and by drawing on the world-renowned experience of British motorsport and engineering group Prodrive, who have been involved in the Dakar Rally and Rally-Raid since 2020.
Spanish rally driver Cristina Gutierrez Herrero and French rally driver Sébastien Loeb will be the Dacia drivers in 2025 and both have a wealth of experience in the category.
Cristina became the first Spanish woman in the car category to finish the Dakar Rally in 217 and she has already participated in the 7 Rallies between 2017 and 2023. Additionally, she has been the women’s all-terrain rally champion in Spain since 2012. Sébastien won the World Rally Championship 9 times in a row from 2004 and 2012 and is one of motorsport’s most successful drivers and often considered the greatest rally driver of all time. He has taken part in Dakar since 2016 and from 2021 took part at the wheel of the Bahrain Raid Xtreme Hunter designed and run by the British Prodrive Team.
The Dacia prototype will run on a synthetic test fuel which will be supplied by Aramco, a world leader in the energy and chemicals sector. This combines hydrogen with captured CO2 which results in a lower-carbon, drop-in fuel compatible with today’s engines.
