Loeb delayed, Elena disappointed: “It’s over, so we might as well go to Monte-Carlo”

In great form during the fourth and fifth stages of the 2019 Dakar, Sébastien Loeb and Daniel Elena (Peugeot ) probably lost their last hopes of victory, Monday January 14 around San Juan de Marcona (Peru). The Franco-Monegasque duo lost 28 minutes due to electrical problems on the 3008 DKR buggy.

“The car stopped after three kilometers, explains the Alsatian. She left again, she did 5 miles and she stopped. In fact, there was a power outage. Everything was going out. Eventually, she stopped more and more often. We started looking at what was wrong, and found the right connector. Otherwise, there was a general power cut in the car. »

The repair of the problem was delayed due to complications with the telephone network with the assistance of PH Sport at the bivouac. “We called for assistance, but no network at the first stop. A hard time. Other than that we didn't make any mistakes, we rode well. It's a bit demotivating, we'll see where we are, what's still playable over the last few days. »

The private Peugeot still accomplished the feat of regaining nine minutes on the rivals after this mishap. Not enough to prevent a fall from the podium, because Sébastien Loeb appears in fourth place in the general classification, 54 minutes behind Nasser Al-Attiyah and a quarter of an hour behind Nani Roma (Mini, 3rd). 

His lifelong co-pilot, Daniel Elena, had difficulty maintaining motivation, a few days after his rant against the organization for an alleged road-book error. " Him (Daniel), he doesn't have it (motivation). The most complicated thing today was telling him that he had to continue. Every time he went out, he wanted to come home. But he's been wanting to go home for three days », indicates Sébastien Loeb. 

We were aware of the outage but we no longer had power. It's a shame, we still kept up a good pace today and we would have made a good comeback on first place. We're going to try to find some juice (in both ways!) for the end of the rally pic.twitter.com/chk67k9qWn

— Daniel Elena (@DanosElena) 14th January 2019

And his browser responded: “It's over here, so we might as well go on the Monte-Carl', well rested. » The opening of the World Rally Championship season (WRC) with Hyundai will constitute the first meeting of a six-round program, undoubtedly in a more jovial spirit.