Dakar | Loeb's surrender: “Today was like dying little by little”

Sébastien Loeb's chances of winning the 2024 Dakar were dashed when the French driver suffered a mechanical problem after a jump in which his car was damaged at the front triangle. The Frenchman stopped at kilometer 132, where he was stuck for an hour and a quarter and was forced to wait for his assistance truck to rescue him, but a hero without a cape appeared.

These are Yungang Zi and Hong Yu Pan, who with his Hunter approached the nine-time WRC champion to lend him some spare parts so that he could continue the penultimate stage of the 2024 Dakar Rally, in which he managed to maintain the podium of the general classification with just one day to go. At the finish line, Sébastien Loeb explained what happened, saying it was “difficult” because they had to “start from scratch”.

“It was a difficult stage for us,” said the Bahrain Raid Xtreme rider. “We lost more than an hour at the start after hitting a big rock and we thought it was completely over for us [braccio della sospensione rotto]but then we were lucky because Yungang Zi from the YunXiang team with the Hunter had the spare parts we needed.”

“So we took the parts, repaired them and set off again. Then, even though we were going slowly, we had punctures,” said the Frenchman, who suffered up to five punctures. “Today was a very tough day for the tyres, we reached the end of the stage with three punctures on the car [più i due ricambi anch’essi forati]but here we are.”

The Frenchman said that the damaged piece was one of the ones they didn't have on their Hunter, and that the rest of the special was “like dying little by little”:

“We started by breaking a front triangle that we didn't have on the car. From that moment on it was like dying little by little… we remained on the side of the road for an hour thinking it was over, but then our teammate Chinese team, who had the piece, managed to lend us a hand.”

“We set off again and from then on, punctures, punctures, punctures… luckily we got to the finish line, with a car in pitiful condition,” said Sébastien Loeb, who said goodbye to another year of his Dakar dream Rally.

The Frenchman said that the damaged piece was one of those they didn't have on their Hunter, and that the rest of the stage was “like dying little by little”: “We started by breaking a front triangle that we didn't have on the car. From from that moment on it was like dying little by little… we remained on the side of the road for an hour thinking it was over, but then our Chinese teammate, who had the piece, managed to give us a hand “.

“We set off again and from then on, punctures, punctures, punctures… luckily we got to the finish line, with a car in pitiful condition,” said Sébastien Loeb, who said goodbye to another year of his Dakar dream .