2024 Rallye du Maroc: Loeb ditched in Prologue

The highly anticipated Dacia Sandrider made its competition début in Sunday’s Prologue of the Rallye du Maroc. It was probably not ideal then that Sébastien Loeb ended up in a ditch with his.

A roadbook miscommunication between Loeb and co-driver Fabian Lurquin got them trapped in a trench with a broken right front suspension arm. Fortunately for them, Marcos Baumgart, who is racing a Prodrive Hunter (the predecessor to the Sandrider), wound up in the ditch himself moments later and decided to help once he was able to get out.

Once Loeb and Lurquin made the necessary repairs, they brought the car to the finish in fortieth of forty-one in the Ultimate class. While they finished 22:45 back of leader Guerlain Chicherit, Prologue times do not count towards the overall for FIA classes. As such, they will have a brand new slate on the leaderboard for Stage #1, though they will still be starting further back due to their position.

“We should have stayed more to the right of the track, but Fabian didn’t have time to give me the information,” Loeb explained. “There were a lot of notes immediately after one another in such a short time. We came to the ditch, deep but not wide, I saw it and slowed down but we still fell in.”

Dacia team-mate and current World Rally-Raid Championship leader Nasser Al-Attiyah finished thirteenth after taking a more conservative approach, not wanting to be the first car on the road. Their other colleague Cristina Gutiérrez, being an Ultimate newcomer, pushed and was fourth.

Chicherit led a 1–2 FIA finish for Minis ahead of João Ferreira. Eryk and Michał Goczał came close to doing the same for the Taurus T3 Max if not for the OT3 of João Dias, who was four seconds ahead of the latter but trailed Eryk by two.

Unlike in FIA, Prologue times are factored in for FIM and thus a solid finish still mattered. Tosha Schareina led the way with an eighteen-second gap on both RallyGP points leader Ross Branch and Daniel Sanders. Ricky Brabec, second in the standings, was three second back of Branch.

Loeb wasn’t the only person suffering on Sunday. Mattias Ekström‘s first foray in the Ford Raptor T1+ was overshadowed by a flat tyre that lost him some ground to team-mate Carlos Sainz. Guillaume de Mévius also had a navigation error like Loeb that resulted in a puncture, while Al-Attiyah’s W2RC rival Yazeed Al-Rajhi finished fifteenth with a flat right-rear tyre.

Defending Dakar Rally2 winner Harith Noah, who finished nineteenth, bluntly called it “possibly the worst prologue ever” for him as he had to start further back and ride in the dust, an experience he likened to “riding to the market to get eggs.”

Edgar Canet was the top Rally2 bike ahead of championship contenders Bradley Cox (by thirty seconds) and Romain Dumontier (thirty-five).

Ayelén Bogado, the only Quad rider not competing for points, was the first person to start the Prologue. She finished fourth in class and 3:08 behind winner Antanas Kanopkinas.

Prologue winners