Rally legend, Frenchman Sebastien Loeb, second in the 2023 Dakar, intends to finally win his first title in his eighth attempt. “We often had the performance but we often had small mechanical problems which made us lose time, sometimes stupid things on my part, also navigation errors,” explained the Alsatian before the start. And every year I got one of three. We don’t have a lot of room for mistakes. »
Unfortunately, from the first stage, this Saturday, between Al-Ula and Al-Henakiyah (Saudi Arabia), Sébastien Loeb has already lost time, a lot of time. With his co-driver Fabian Lurquin, they punctured twice on the 414 km special, the course of which was punctuated by canyons and volcanic rocks, very abrasive for the tires and finished twentieth at almost 23 minutes.
Victory of De Mevius
Double defending champion Nasser Al-Attiyah and his co-driver Mathieu Baumel (22nd, 2 minutes behind Loeb) had the same problem, two punctures at the start of the race, which forced them to drive slowly until the end. Frenchman Stéphane Peterhansel (Audi) was unable to get rid of the Saudi rocks – a puncture for him too – and is in 24th place (+32min15).
The Belgian Guillaume de Mevius (Toyota) won this first stage of the Dakar-2024. He arrived just before the Audi of Spaniard Carlos Sainz (+1min44), according to provisional results. The three-time winner of the Dakar (2010, 2018, 2020) started far behind the other favorites after an average time during the prologue on Friday.