Dacia Enters Dakar Rally From 2025

From left to right: Sébastien Loeb, 9-Time World Rally Champion, Denis Le Vot, CEO of Dacia, Cristina Gutiérrez Herrero, Spanish rally driver.

​Dacia, the affordable car brand, has announced that it will enter the World Rally-Raid Championship as a manufacturer from 2025, with the Dakar Rally as its main challenge. The Dakar Rally is a legendary event that has been attracting hundreds of adventurers from over 60 countries for more than four decades.

The Dakar Rally reflects Dacia’s brand values of rationality and emotion. It is a human and sporting adventure that requires robustness, endurance and adaptability. It is also an eco-smart adventure, as Dacia’s race car will use synthetic fuel, a low-carbon alternative to conventional fuels. And it is an essential but cool adventure, with a clear and ambitious objective that does not waste any resources. Dacia will use the Dakar Rally as a testing ground and a source of inspiration for its future products. It will experiment with new outdoor features and energy solutions that are clever and affordable, in the true spirit of Dacia. Before taking on the 2025 season, Dacia will test its prototypes in the 2024 Rallye du Maroc, another prestigious rally-raid event.


Denis Le Vot, CEO of Dacia, said:

“Dacia and Dakar are a perfect match! Not only is this a test of Dacia's true robustness, but it is also a showing of our commitment to low-carbon mobility. We are very excited to take part in Dakar with synthetic fuel technology. Dacia, alongside the best team and drivers in the game, are serious contenders for the rally.”

Cristina Gutiérrez, 31, is a Spanish rally driver who made history in 2017 as the first Spanish woman to finish the Dakar Rally in the car category. She has competed in seven editions of the Dakar Rally from 2017 to 2023. She is also the reigning all-terrain rally champion (women’s category) in Spain since 2012.

Sébastien Loeb, 49, is a French rally driver who won the World Rally Championship nine times consecutively from 2004 to 2012. He is widely regarded as one of the best rally drivers of all time and has participated in the Dakar Rally since 2016. From 2021, he drove the Bahrain Raid Xtreme Hunter, a car designed and run by the British Prodrive team.

Prodrive will continue to collaborate with Loeb for the Dacia project. The Dacia prototype will use synthetic fuel supplied by Aramco, a world leader in energy and chemicals. Aramco’s synthetic fuel is produced by combining renewable hydrogen with captured CO2, resulting in a lower-carbon fuel that can be used in today’s engines. The Dakar Rally will be an ideal testing ground for Dacia’s new car and fuel technology. The brand aims to demonstrate its robustness, endurance and adaptability in the most extreme conditions.