Dacia will take home this wonderful postcard from the Morocco Rally: a team celebrating. Engineers, mechanics above, towering over the new Dacia Sandriders: Nasser Al Attiyah and co-driver Edouard Boulanger celebrate on the roof.
For the prince of Qatar, this is the seventh success in the Morocco Rally and the third title of FIA 2R World Rally Raid Championship. An announced success for him, given that he started as favourite, but there were many unknowns, starting with the reliability of the brand new project designed by DACIA Sandriders:
“It’s nice to win the Morocco Rally. This is my seventh success here and also the third time I have won the title. Like all first times, winning with Dacia at the start of this new adventure is a great satisfaction, both personally and for the whole team. It’s a young project and we needed to test it also in racing situations.”
Also arriving at the Morocco Rally was Tiphanie Isnard, the only female team principal of the factory teams at the start.
“I’m really proud for the whole team, the guys here on the rally and the ones at home. It was a huge effort to get to the start. We had carried out anti-tests, but finally the Moroccan Rally was a general rehearsal for the Dakar.”
With this victory, the enthusiasm, but also the bar of expectations in anticipation of the Dakar are even higher.
“Not even in two months, the cars will already be on their way to Saudi Arabia. It was very important to have participated in the Maroco Rally to finalize the work. We have gained experience, accumulated kilometers in a race situation and some weaknesses have also emerged which we will have to work on. Luckily it’s small things, but in the Dakar everything counts so we are required to make maximum efforts now to be ready for the big event in January.”
The fight in the cars promises to be very interesting with a close battle with official teams and strong drivers well distributed between the four manufacturers Dacia, Ford, Toyota and Mini.
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