It was another successful day of learning and progressing on Rallye du Maroc as Nasser Al-Attiyah and Edouard Boulanger maintained their overall advantage for The Dacia Sandriders.
Making its competition debut, The Dacia Sandriders is using the deciding round of the 2024 FIA World Rally-Raid Championship as a test event ahead of January’s Dakar, ranked as motorsport’s toughest challenge.
After Al-Attiyah and Boulanger gave The Dacia Sandriders a debut W2RC stage win on Monday, the team’s leading crew impressed again on Stage 2, a highly challenging loop stage starting and finishing from the Zagora bivouac.
The #200 Dacia Sandriders entry was second fastest over the 267 timed kilometres to remain at the head of the overall and Ultimate category classifications.
Benefiting from a significantly higher starting position of 12th after a delay on Sunday’s Prologue left him 121st on the road, Sébastien Loeb was third fastest, despite stopping to change a damaged tyre during the stage.
Cristina Gutiérrez was delayed by more than 15 minutes stopping to change a broken front upper wishbone but experienced no further problems as she completed Stage 2 with the 24th fastest time overall.
The Dacia Sandriders team is heading east tomorrow (Wednesday) with the longest day of Rallye du Maroc so far taking crews from Zagora to Mengoub.
KEY QUOTES
Tiphanie Isnard, Team Principal, the Dacia Sandriders : « While Stage 1 on Monday was the chance to show our performance straight out of the box, Stage 2 allowed us to experience some of the many challenges we expect to face on the Dakar. Cristina and Séb were both delayed completing the stage but, once again, were able to gather plenty of useful data as we continue to progress. It’s great that Nasser and Edouard have maintained their lead for The Dacia Sandriders, but, as we’ve said all along, our clear objective on this event is to learn and improve and I’m pleased we continued to do that today. »
Nasser Al-Attiyah (Qatar), driver, teh Dacia Sandriders : « It was a good run and we are really quite happy after opening the road all day without any mistakes. Edouard made a good navigation but it was a tricky stage, not easy with a lot of broken roads. The sand dunes were very difficult because there were no lines from the bikes. But we did a good job and I am really happy with the pace I did today. We can push more but we have a good pace and we keep it like this. We are learning a lot from the performance of the cars. We want to collect the maximum data for the next rally, the Dakar. »
Cristina Gutierrez (Spain), driver, the Dacia Sandriders : « Our day was a little difficult because, in the very beginning we hit a ditch hard before we continued in the stage. Then around 30 kilometres later the front upper wishbone broke. It was actually a good training for us because it was the first time we had a mechanical issue inside a stage. We did well to change it, losing only 10 or 15 minutes. We also lost some time at the beginning when we got a little bit lost but we are learning. After that we keep calm and continue as normal. We are happy with the performance of the team and our performance. This is the good point but there are still three long days in front of us so we will see. »
Sébastien Loeb (France), driver, the Dacia Sandriders : « It was okay, a good stage for us overall. I was maybe a bit safe in the rough areas, especially at the beginning of the stage. We had one puncture at one point and had to change the wheel. But there was no problem with the car. We had a good road position starting 12th and I didn’t catch the car in front because it was Lucas Moraes and he was the fastest in the stage so I didn’t struggle with the dust, except from the motorbikes, like everybody. It was a clean day, the suspension is working well, the brakes also so I was happy with the car. »
RALLYE DU MAROC STAGE 2 RESULTS (UNOFFICIAL)
Zagora-Zagora, October 8
Stage distance: 267km Liaison distance: 158km Total distance: 425km
2nd: Nasser Al-Attiyah (QAT)/Edouard Boulanger (FRA), 3h05m10s
3rd: Sébastien Loeb (FRA)/Fabian Lurquin (BEL), 3h06m50s
24rd: Cristina Gutiérrez (ESP)/Pablo Moreno (ESP), 3h25m35s
RALLYE DU MAROC OVERALL POSITIONS AFTER STAGE 2 UNOFFICIAL)
1st: Nasser Al-Attiyah (QAT)/Edouard Boulanger (FRA), 5h15m19s
5th: Sébastien Loeb (FRA)/Fabian Lurquin (BEL), 5h29m46s
15th: Cristina Gutiérrez (ESP)/Pablo Moreno (ESP), 5h46m59s
RALLYE DU MAROC: THE BIG NUMBER 2: Despite Rallye du Maroc marking The Dacia Sandriders competition debut, two of the team’s three entries registered top-three stage times on Tuesday’s second stage.
THE DAY AHEAD: Stage 3: Zagora-Mengoub, October 9
The longest day of Rallye du Maroc, round five of the 2024 FIA World Rally-Raid Championship, is up next with Wednesday’s third stage taking crews from Zagora
to Mengoub. Stage distance: 325km Liaison distance: 360km Total distance: .685km