- The Dacia Sandriders are all set for another adventure as a second Dakar Rally awaits the team
- It comes after a successful championship last year, which saw Dacia, the brand with true outdoor spirit, register a stage win on its Dakar debut, plus two victories across the World Rally-Raid Championship season
- World Champion, Lucas Moraes, joins the expanded line-up in Saudi Arabia, bringing the total number of cars the team will enter to four
- Drivers Nasser Al-Attiyah, Cristina Gutiérrez and Sébastien Loeb continue their bid for victory, while navigators Édouard Boulanger, Fabian Lurquin, Pablo Moreno and Dennis Zenz will perform crucial roles
The Dacia Sandriders will take on motorsport’s ultimate adventure and toughest test for the second time when it takes on the Dakar Rally from 3 – 17 January 2026.
Following a successful season last year, Dacia, the brand with outdoor spirit, registered a stage win on its Dakar Rally debut, plus two victories across the World Rally-Raid Championship (W2RC).
Since its inception, the Dakar Rally has pushed drivers, navigators and vehicles to the limit in an unrivalled contest of reliability, endurance and skill over some of the world’s most challenging terrain.
It’s the perfect setting for Dacia to credibly live its brand values and participate in Dakar’s philosophy of an adventure built for those who grab life with both hands, those who look for a real challenge, that are determined, passionate and love the great outdoors and those driven by desire to feel alive like never before.
The Dacia Sandriders returns to Saudi Arabia with a four-strong line-up, aiming for further success on the opening round of the 2026 FIA World Rally-Raid Championship.
For two weeks, the team will battle against the clock over sand dunes, rugged narrow tracks and rocky passes as it aims to begin its W2RC title challenge on a high.
Taking on the ultra-demanding 7,994-kilometre route from the Red Sea port city of Yanbu and back again are four of the sport’s most formidable driver and navigator pairings.
With 21 starts and five Dakar Rally victories to his name, Nasser Al-Attiyah brings remarkable performance and pedigree to the team. A three-time winner of the W2RC title and runner-up in last season’s standings, the Qatari, 55, is partnered with Belgian navigator Fabian Lurqin.
Praised for providing the ultimate supporting role to their team-mates during the 2025 Dakar Rally, Spaniards Cristina Gutiérrez and Pablo Moreno are back once again, determined to let their driving and navigating do the talking. They aim to build on the potential they have demonstrated during three W2RC appearances for The Dacia Sandriders last year.
Sébastien Loeb, a nine-time winner of the FIA World Rally Championship, is joined for his 10th Dakar by fellow Frenchman Édouard Boulanger, the 2025 W2RC champion navigator. After being forced to retire from the Dakar Rally 12-months ago with damage caused by an accident on Stage 3, 51-year-old Loeb is determined to improve upon his previous best Dakar Rally result of second place achieved in 2017, 2022 and 2023.
Further strengthening The Dacia Sandriders’ Dakar Rally challenge is defending FIA World Rally-Raid champion Lucas Moraes from Brazil and his new German navigator, Dennis Zenz. Moraes achieved a Dakar Rally podium on his event debut in 2023 with Zenz runner-up in class the same year.
The quartet will compete in upgraded four-wheel-drive Dacia Sandrider cars powered by ARAMCO sustainable fuel and equipped with BFGoodrich tyres.
THE DACIA SANDRIDER: WHAT’S NEW FOR 2026
The Dacia Sandrider is designed to win. It strongly embodies Dacia’s core brand values of ‘Essential but Cool’, ‘Eco-Smart’ and ‘Robust and Outdoor’.
New for 2026, several key upgrades focus on weight reduction, cooling, visibility, reliability and driver comfort.
The main improvements include lighter body panels to improve agility and efficiency and a redesigned rear section with the boot assembly removed and a new rear panel added. What’s more, a new air intake with a short snorkel version has been designed specifically for the Dakar Rally.
The car also sees a re-positioned air filter box, an updated rear radiator grille design to maintain cooling even with partial blockage, a foam filter added to the front grille to reduce sand from entering the front fan and new fan motors with higher operating speed and updated electronics for better reliability.
A new water-cooled DC-DC unit will ensure cooling performance without relying solely on airflow, the removal of the headlight LED housing improves forward visibility between the bonnet and blade, and an upgraded LED spotlight improves night driving vision.
The Dacia Sandrider has reinforced upper wishbones for improved durability, a reduced clamp-loaded clutch unit, a new front propshaft design for better spine durability, an updated torquemeter with torque limiter to prevent overload, new FIA-homologated connecting rods to enhance engine reliability, engine software upgrades to optimise power delivery within FIA limits and reduced overpower risk and a new on-board camera system to support performance analysis.
“OUR OBJECTIVE IS CLEAR – WE WANT TO WIN.”
While expectations are high, Tiphanie Isnard, Team Principal of The Dacia Sandriders, is fully aware of the intense challenge in store. She said: “Only one year after our first participation in the FIA World Rally-Raid Championship and Dacia’s very first steps into motorsport, we are already back at the start of the world’s toughest event, and the one that demands the most from everyone involved.”
She added: “We approach the Dakar Rally with determination and ambition. Our objective is clear: we want to win. To give ourselves every chance, we’ve built a line-up and assembled crews operating at the highest level of performance and expertise, with great consistency and calm inside the cockpits to take on such an extraordinary human challenge. The team is ready. Everyone has given so much – dedication, determination, countless hours of work – to ensure we arrive fully prepared for what lies ahead.”
The Dacia Sandrider is now at technical maturity, having shown strong performance on every type of terrain, from dunes to fast tracks.
Tiphanie continued: “We are equipped to face the race, but we approach it with humility. The Dakar always has another side. Unexpected challenges, surprises and setbacks, and that’s why we love this event. It demands constant endurance and the ability to respond to whatever comes. We are ready to question ourselves every single day, to keep moving forward, and, I hope, bring home the win!”
THE DAKAR RALLY 2026: ROUTE
The 48th Dakar Rally, and the seventh to be based in Saudi Arabia, consists of 4,840 competitive kilometres and a total distance of 7,994 kilometres divided between 13 stages. The event begins with the Prologue which consists of a 23-kilometre timed route around Yanbu on 3 January. It is this which is used to determine the starting order for the opening stage.
Stage 1 on 4 January starts and finishes in Yanbu before the action heads north to AlUla on 5 January and then east to Hail via the first of two Marathon stages. The Marathon stage format requires crews to sleep overnight in remote camps with only limited resources available and no technical back-up or assistance from their teams.
The competition is set to reach Hail on 8 January with the 920-kilometre Stage 6 – the rally’s longest – following on 9 January ahead of the rest day in Riyadh, the Saudi capital. The race back to Yanbu begins on 11 January and takes in the Wadi Ad-Dawasir loop stage on 12 January. At 481 kilometres, no timed section is longer on the event.
The second Marathon stage begins on 13 January with the deciding Stage 13 starting and finishing in Yanbu on 17 January. While ambient temperatures are expected to be between 11 to 21 degrees centigrade during the day, at night they are likely to hover between zero and six degrees.
THE DAKAR RALLY 2025: REVISITED
The Dacia Sandriders team set the gruelling W2RC season opener as its key target last season. It was a case of mission accomplished when two of the three Dacia entries crossed the finish line, a fine achievement for a new team contesting such a demanding event for the first time.
As well as gaining vital experience along the 7,828-kilometre route, The Dacia Sandriders savoured several notable highlights. They included a stage win for Nasser Al-Attiyah and Édouard Boulanger, four top-10 stage times from Cristina Gutiérrez and Pablo Moreno, plus some impressive performances by Sébastien Loeb and Fabian Lurquin before their early exit due to accident damage.
Al-Attiyah and Boulanger fought valiantly for a final podium place before settling for fourth in the overall ranking to underline the pace and potential of the Dacia Sandrider.
Their stage victory meant Al-Attiyah, who was second quickest three times, became the only driver in Dakar Rally history to clock a fastest stage time in 18 consecutive participations.
NAVIGATOR NOTES: DENNIS ZENZ’S THREE-POINT PLAN FOR SUCCESS
The Dacia Sandriders’ four navigators Édouard Boulanger, Fabian Lurquin, Pablo Moreno and Dennis Zenz will perform crucial roles during the Dakar Rally.
Team newcomer, Zenz, has revealed his pre-event preparations: “I break down my preparation into three parts. The first part is fitness. We need to have very good strength in the core and in the neck because we have nothing to hold on to except our remote-control device, so this is a priority. It’s also important to have good endurance because we face very long days, very demanding stages and we need to stay concentrated for a long time each day, for two weeks.”
He continued: “The second part is the route information we get from the organiser, which intentionally is not a lot. We are now in the seventh year of the Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia, so we have some data from the past that we can look into to see how difficult the terrain was and how difficult the navigation was. The third part, together with the team, is to work on the technical aspect to see what we can repair with spare parts that we have inside the car, and how to fix things in case of emergency.”
KEY QUOTES
Nasser Al-Attiyah (Qatar), Driver, The Dacia Sandriders said: “The Dacia Sandrider is a very good car. The Dacia Sandriders is a very strong team. Therefore, I am sure we will have a very good result. Even though the Dakar is very difficult, I will push to win again, this is my target. It’s possible even though it won’t be easy. We showed we had a really good pace on last year’s Dakar, even though it was the first for the team, and we showed this pace all season, we just didn’t always have the best luck. But we have much more experience now and we are really well prepared.”
Cristina Gutiérrez (Spain), Driver, The Dacia Sandriders, added: “Last year I had some uncertainty about how things would go, but after seeing how we performed in the two races we’ve completed, I feel strong and highly motivated heading into the Dakar. I know we’re capable of achieving a great result. Of course, much will depend on how the race unfolds and the strategy we develop together with the team, but I’m confident and ready to take on the challenge.”
Sébastien Loeb (France), Driver, The Dacia Sandriders, continued: “The team has done a tremendous amount of work on the car since last year. Back then, we faced some issues with the radiators and cooling system because the car was still very new in its development phase. The overall performance was strong, but a few reliability problems held us back. These have now been solved thanks to the excellent work carried out by the whole team throughout the 2025 W2RC season. On top of that, we won Rallye du Maroc last October, the traditional dress rehearsal for the Dakar, so I’d say we couldn’t be better prepared or more confident heading into this year’s event. We know the Dakar is long and complex, with challenges every single day, but all indicators are green – and we’re really looking forward to meeting up with the whole team over there.”
Lucas Moraes (Brazil), Driver, The Dacia Sandriders, said: “The Dakar Rally 2026 will be a new chapter for me. A new team, a new car and a new co-driver. What stays the same is the hunger to fight at the front. We know the challenge is huge, but that’s exactly what motivates us. I can’t wait to start this journey with Dacia and push for something truly special.”
THE DACIA SANDRIDERS DAKAR RALLY 2026 LINE-UP
#212: Cristina Gutiérrez (ESP) / Pablo Moreno (ESP)
#219: Sébastien Loeb (FRA) / Édouard Boulanger (FRA)
#223: Lucas Moreas (BRA) / Dennis Zenz (GER)
#299: Nasser Al-Attiyah (QAT) / Fabian Lurquin (BEL)
THE DAKAR RALLY 2026: KEY INFORMATION
Starts: Yabu, 3 January | Finishes: Yanbu, 17 January
Stages: 13
Stage distance: 4,840 kilometres | Total distance: 7,994 kilometres
THE DAKAR RALLY 2026: THE BIG NUMBER
325: The four Dacia Sandriders are among 325 vehicles set to tackle the 2026 Dakar Rally. They will compete in the headlining Ultimate car category, featuring 72 entries.