Rallye du Maroc Stage 4: Thursday October 10
Nasser Al-Attiyah and Edouard Boulanger have moved a step closer to giving The Dacia Sandriders a debut FIA World Rally-Raid Championship victory by completing the penultimate stage of Rallye du Maroc leading by more than nine minutes following another strong display.
Sébastien Loeb and Fabian Lurquin, the winners of the longest stage on Wednesday, were hampered by running first on the road today but still managed to set the sixth fastest time, two places behind Al-Attiyah and Boulanger. Loeb and Lurquin start tomorrow’s deciding stage in fourth position but in contention for a podium finish.
After restarting on Stage 4 following her retirement on Stage 3 with an electrical issue, Cristina Gutiérrez was delayed by a broken upper wishbone during today’s looped stage west of the Mengoub bivouac.
Determined to provide as much feedback as possible to the engineers from The Dacia Sandriders, Gutiérrez made it to the stage finish with the 19th best time alongside co-driver Pablo Moreno.
With Friday’s stage left to run, The Dacia Sandriders holds first and fourth positions on what is fundamentally a test event ahead of January’s Dakar and the team’s first competitive outing.
KEY QUOTES
Tiphanie Isnard, Team Principal, the Dacia Sandriders : « It’s been another successful day for The Dacia Sandriders in terms of the performance of our cars, the progress we’ve been able to make and the feedback we’ve been able to gather during the fourth stage of our competition debut.
« Nasser drove like the champion he is, focusing hard on preserving his lead and, of course, gathering lots of crucial data and knowledge. Sébastien’s road position meant repeating his Stage 4 victory was never going to be possible but he still did a very good job given the conditions he faced. We really do feel for Cristina and want to thank her for giving the team valuable feedback concerning the robustness of the wishbone. Thanks to her input we have been able to make significant progress in developing the best possible version to be fitted to the car. »
Nasser Al-Attiyah (Qatar), driver, the Dacia Sandrider : « Today was a really good day. We’ve been a little bit careful all the way. We catch Guillaume de Mevius, it was not easy to pass because the stage was fast and there was a lot of dust, but we take the chance and in the camel grass we pass him just to have a clear road. There was nothing special today, I just wanted to have a good run without any problems and with some good points for the championship. That’s what we did today and thank you also to Edouard. Our Dacia Sandrider is working well but tomorrow is another tough day so we have to stay focused. »
Cristina Gutierrez (Spain), driver, the Dacia Sandriders : « It has not been the rally we expected because we’ve had a lot of problems. But I want to take the positive way and this is good for us to learn for the Dakar and how to react in these cases. Today we had a problem with the upper wishbone again so it seems we have to make it stronger. But we are happy to bring the car back and we are happy for the team because they are doing an incredible job. »
Sébastien Loeb (France), driver, the Dacia Sandriders : « It has been a good stage for us but I think we did a good job. The navigation was a bit tricky, we had to find the way in some places but Fabian did really well. We tried to push but a lot of the time it was a single track from the motorbikes so we had to open the lines and, for sure, we lost a lot of time for this. Honestly we couldn’t do much better and the car worked perfectly. We can be happy. »
RALLYE DU MAROC STAGE 4 RESULTS (UNOFFICIAL) – Mengoub-Mengoub, October 10
Stage distance: 315km Liaison distance: 62km Total distance: 377km
4th: Nasser Al-Attiyah (QAT)/Edouard Boulanger (FRA), 3h09m49s
6th: Sébastien Loeb (FRA)/Fabian Lurquin (BEL), 3h12m39s
19th: Cristina Gutiérrez (ESP)/Pablo Moreno (ESP), 3h24m12s
RALLYE DU MAROC OVERALL POSITIONS AFTER STAGE 4 (UNOFFICIAL)
1st: Nasser Al-Attiyah (QAT)/Edouard Boulanger (FRA), 11h47m01s
4th: Sébastien Loeb (FRA)/Fabian Lurquin (BEL), 12h00m22s
86th: Cristina Gutiérrez (ESP)/Pablo Moreno (ESP), 33h11m11s
RALLYE DU MAROC: THE BIG NUMBER
9m12s: Nasser Al-Attiyah and Edouard Boulanger’s lead for The Dacia
Sandriders after Stage 4 of Rallye du Maroc.
THE DAY AHEAD: Stage 5: Mengoub-Mengoub, October 11
Rallye du Maroc and the 2024 FIA World Rally-Raid Championship conclude tomorrow (Friday) with a second loop stage east of the Mengoub bivouac.
Stage distance: 273km Liaison distance: 103km Total distance: 376km
Linda Hirvonen,