Dacia Sandriders technical director Philip Dunabin played down expectations for the team's first appearance within the Dakar Rally, despite securing a 1-2 result on its Maroc Rally debut.
The Romanian manufacturer has partnered with Prodrive to participate within the World Rally Championship [WR2C]including the Dakar tilt, which can start on January 3 in Saudi Arabia, with Nasser Al-Attiyah, Sebastien Loeb and Cristina Gutierrez on board, who will pilot the entry in three cars.
After traveling to Morocco in October for live testing through the competition, five-time Dakar winner Al-Attiyah and Loeb secured a 1-2 result despite minor issues equivalent to cooling issues, while Gutierrez used older components to make sure longer lifespan experiments.
However, despite the unexpectedly good result, Dunabin insisted he had no hope of winning the Dakar.
Asked what the goal was, Dunabin said: “We should do it the most effective we are able to. There is not any assumption on Dacia's part that Dacia can immediately enter the race and win.
“Of course we hope that we’ll have the speed, but we don't know that you must start the Dakar to achieve experience and be sure that you have got the reliability to cover this distance.
Philip Dunabin, technical director of Dacia Sandriders
Photo: Dacia
“So I feel for a start Dacia probably thought we could go, run, get experience and whatever – possibly the expectations were raised somewhat bit due to the leads to Morocco.
“But there is no such thing as a obligation for us to instantly ensure a winning result. If we do that, it is going to be great, but there are not any presumptions.
“We broke down, we had problems, not every thing went easily. It could have looked amazing, but we definitely had some challenges.
“From a certain perspective it looks like 'you win, the job is done, you can just go to Dakar and that's it', but we have a lot of work ahead of us. We still need to look at a lot of critical elements.”
Reviewing the testing of Gutierrez's automobile, which saw her finish 78th within the Moroccan event, Dunabin told Motorsport.com: “There were certain elements of the automobile – particularly Cristina's automobile – that were used during testing and we didn’t change them. items that we knew weren’t in pretty much as good condition as they may very well be.
“Why you do it’s because you’ll be able to go to tests and learn numerous things, but there’s nothing like actually attending the events.
Dacia Sandriders, Rally of Morocco
Photo: Motorsport.com
“So you take components that you know are likely to have a normal lifespan, leave them in the car and go to the Morocco Rally with them because it gives you the margin you're looking for when you go out on the road.” on Dakar.”
Chief mechanic Alistair Gibson added: “It was really necessary for the team that one in every of the cars actually had some challenges.
“The automobile was a test automobile, and so we did durability tests on the automobile, we knew that and we needed to experience it for ourselves.
“We also, when we had a few little challenges, the team's reaction is a really good lesson for everyone, because when it happens in Dakar you have to be sharp.”
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