The 2022 edition of the Dakar, which will start next January 1st from Jeddah and will take place – as already happened in 2019 and 2020 – entirely in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, promises to be particularly interesting. There is enormous curiosity to see the debut of Audi, which proposes an extremely innovative project and fielded the Peterhansel-Sainz dream team, but also the reaction of the Toyota ‘veterans’, led by the experience of Nasser Al-Attiyah . And then there is, as always, Sebastian Loeb. For the very French champion, the legendary rally-raid is becoming a sort of curse. The nine-time WRC world champion in fact has conquered 14 stages, coming second in the standings in 2017 and third in 2019, but has never triumphed in the overall standings.
Protagonist this year in the new Extreme E series, where he finished second in the championship racing for Lewis Hamilton’s team, Loeb will be on his second attempt in the Dakar with the team Prodrive. Last year the mission ended with a bitter retreat. “It was not a year without races for me, but rather a year without a rally-raid – commented the Alsatian to the official website of the Dakar – we did some tests, but maybe not on as many kilometers as we would have liked, because we had some setbacks. However, the car works very well and the feeling is very good with my new co-driver “.
Loeb has in fact left the historic co-driver Daniel Elena after a collaboration that lasted since 1998 and has ‘entrusted’ himself to the Belgian Fabian Lurquin. “We just started competing together – added the 47-year-old from Haguenau – so now we will have to make sure that everything is fine. The Dakar is a complicated race and we will have to find the right pace and remain humble. The most important thing is that we have a reliable car. In any case, we are quite prepared“. Whether it was enough to defeat the curse will only be known in mid-January.
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