Dacia Prepares Its Next Car for Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia

Dacia begins the first real test of the Sandrider T1U in the Moroccan desert. This vehicle will compete in the upcoming World Rally Championship and Dakar Rally next year. Built from the ground up, the project combines the strengths of Alpine Racing and Prodrive in motorsport, and so far, the team led by Tiffany Isnard is doing very well.

The Sandrider was unveiled in January and tested at the end of May, with plans to make its competitive debut at the long-awaited W2RC Rallye du Maroc season finale in October before heading to Saudi Arabia for the Dakar Rally. Therefore, the team is undergoing a two-week intensive test in the Moroccan sand dunes, where surrounding temperatures have peaked at 50 degrees Celsius, providing the team with plenty of data to analyze.

Isnard explains, “The tests have gone smoothly so far. We haven’t encountered any major issues with the car, just the dashboard inside the cockpit since the drivers had a slight visibility issue and felt we needed to improve that, so we made that adjustment. But that’s the only thing we changed between the test in Europe and Morocco.”

She added, “In Morocco, our main goal was to focus entirely on the car's reliability. The feedback from our drivers has been positive, and they are very happy with the handling and overall performance, but it’s not like a track car. In Morocco, we are halfway through. We are comfortable with our vehicle, but we are not 100% sure of our speed, so we decided to focus on reliability for now and will see that in the Morocco Rally.”

For many European teams, Morocco has long been a popular testing destination, and Dacia is no different. Morocco provides the logistical benefit of offering the same terrain as Saudi Arabia, with easy access from Dacia’s base in Paris and the UK.

Tiffany clarified, “The sand dunes and tracks in Morocco give us the best preparation not only for the Morocco Rally but also for the Dakar Rally, which is very similar and has a lot of sand dunes. We have nearly 500 kilometers of these different types of terrain, so we can find many areas to test how the vehicle handles and behaves in the sand dunes. There is no better place than Morocco for this type of preparation.”