- Sun City event hosts FIA World Rally-Raid Championship for the first time
- Al-Attiyah/Boulanger and Loeb/Lurquin to embark on new African adventure
- Team principal Tiphanie Isnard: “We approach this event with humility but with a clear aim”
The Dacia Sandriders continues its pursuit of FIA World Rally-Raid Championship success when the first South African Safari Rally to count for the W2RC takes place from May 18-24.
Round three of the 2025 season might mark the W2RC’s first visit to South Africa but it’s a return to the continent of Africa where The Dacia Sandriders celebrated a debut victory on the 2024 season-deciding Rallye du Maroc last October.
And The Dacia Sandriders arrives in Sun City – from where this eagerly anticipated W2RC event is run – victorious once again. That follows the team’s Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge triumph in February, when Nasser Al-Attiyah and Édouard Boulanger drove their Dacia Sandrider to first place after five gruelling days of desert-based competition.
Significantly, the result in the Middle East elevated Qatari Al-Attiyah to first place in the provisional W2RC Drivers’ ranking with Frenchman Boulanger moving on top of the Navigators’ points after two rounds. The Dacia Sandriders climbed into second place in the Manufacturers’ standings.
Not only is the South African Safari Rally new to The Dacia Sandriders, it’s also a new style of event for the team, which began competing last October and has only tackled desert-based rally-raids to date.
The mixture of gravel and dirt tracks, open savanna, dense bush and mountainous sections of the South African Safari Rally represents the next stage of The Dacia Sandriders development and discovery of motorsport’s toughest discipline, a challenge the team can’t wait to experience and overcome.
That prospect has influenced its approach to the 2759-kilometre event. Team principal Tiphanie Isnard explained: “We are really looking forward to discover this new event in the World Rally-Raid Championship. We have been working really hard to get ready and get prepared for the South African Safari Rally, which has a totally different profile from what we’ve experienced until now. Because we haven’t competed in South Africa before and will only test in the country a few days before the start, we approach this rally with a lot of humility. We will be in the Toyota team’s playground and we know that they will be very strong again. Anyway, the target will be to maintain Nasser and Édouard’s position in the Drivers’ and Navigators’ championships and also strengthen our position in the Manufacturers’ championship. Above all we head to South Africa with the aim of gaining crucial experience and knowledge of this type of terrain by getting our two Dacia Sandriders to the finish.”
South African Safari Rally route in short
Based out of Sun City 140 kilometers northwest of Johannesburg, the South African Safari Rally begins with a 25-kilometre Prologue on Monday May 19. Stage 1, a loop stage southwest of the Sun City Bivouac, follows on Tuesday May 20 with a timed route of 285 kilometers and a total distance of 571 kilometers. Stage 2 further southwest of Sun City on Wednesday May 21 marks part one of the Marathon Stage with crews covering 418 kilometers to reach the overnight Marathon Camp. The South African Safari Rally resumes on Thursday May 22 with part two of the Marathon Stage, Stage 3, which covers a further 537 kilometers. Stage 4, which runs close to South Africa’s border with Botswana on Friday May 23, is another loop stage starting from and finishing in Sun City.
It adds 698 kilometers to the event’s total distance. The deciding Stage 5 on Saturday May 24, located a short distance from Sun City, measures 290 kilometers of which 218 kilometers are against the clock (including eight kilometers of the Power Selective Section). While dry conditions are the norm during May in northwest South Africa, the possibility of light rain remains, while the ambient temperature ranges from five degrees centigrade in the morning and at night to 26 degrees centigrade during the day.
How The Dacia Sandriders has prepared for its South African adventure
Technical director Philip Dunabin explains how the Dacia Sandrider Ultimate category contenders have been readied for the challenge of the South African Safari Rally.
“We don’t have much information or knowledge of the event but we know there will be a variety of terrain and places with over-hanging vegetation, which can break the bodywork and break the windscreen. There is also the risk from water crossings where the water can be quite deep if it rains heavily.
“There are new elements of bodywork added on the front of the car to protect the windscreen and protect from branches and so on getting trapped between the canopy that’s above the top of the windscreen and the windscreen pillar.
“We’ve made modifications to the rear of the front wheelarches so that they don’t get ripped off by the vegetation quite so easily, a problem we had in the Dakar early on.
“We’ve also added a new air intake system so there will be a snorkel fitted to each side of the car. That will run up the windscreen pillar and feeds the air in through the back of the wheelarch to the air filter box which sits just underneath the back of the bonnet.
“At the rear of the car we’ve removed the boot that we had earlier in the program and made a new cosmetic feature to give it a tidier appearance that’s more in keeping with Dacia styling.
“Because the stages run between 1000 metres and 1500 metres above sea level, we’ve done a certain number of modifications to the engine mapping to make sure we run at maximum power in all of the stages.
“Because the stages run between 1000 metres and 1500 metres above sea level, we’ve done a certain number of modifications to the engine mapping to make sure we run at maximum power in all of the stages.
“From the reliability side we’ve strengthened the longitudinal transmission shafts going to the front axle with some new parts, improved dimensions and improved tolerancing.”
KEY QUOTES
NASSER AL-ATTIYAH (QATAR), DRIVER, THE DACIA SANDRIDERS
“Although it’s new terrain for the Dacia Sandrider, we start the South African Safari Rally with confidence because the team has done a very good job to prepare for this event, which we know won’t be easy. After our Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge victory in February, me and Édouard lead the championship so the most important objective will be to keep our positions at the halfway point of the season. I’m excited to experience this new event, having tested for another manufacturer in the country a few years ago. I also want to show the performance of the Dacia Sandrider is not only strong in the desert but also in the kind of mixed terrain we can expect in South Africa.”
SÉBASTIEN LOEB (FRANCE), DRIVER, THE DACIA SANDRIDERS
“I’ve been to South Africa once before for the World Rallycross Championship, but obviously that won’t help a lot in terms of experience. From what I have seen, which was also the case in Kenya when I was competing in World Rally Championship, we will experience broken surfaces and challenging terrain. The objective for me is clear: after being unable to finish the first two events of the season I want to get all the way to the end in South Africa. At the same time, I also want to reproduce the performance that was there in the Middle East but avoid the mistakes that held us back on rounds one and two. As is always the case in the W2RC, the level of the competition will be high. While it’s a mission of discovery for me, many of the crews have done this event before, which will only make things even more challenging. But if we can finish the event that will already represent a good result for us.”
THE DACIA SANDRIDERS SOUTH AFRICAN SAFARI RALLY LINE-UP
#200: Nasser Al-Attiyah (QAT)/Édouard Boulanger (FRA)
#219: Sébastien Loeb (FRA)/Fabian Lurquin (BEL)
SOUTH AFRICAN SAFARI RALLY: THE BIG NUMBER
2759: The inaugural South African Safari Rally covers a total distance of 2759 kilometres.
