Daniel Elena: “I will bounce back”

Did you expect to receive such a phone call from Sébastien?

No way. I was at the checkout counter at a store when he called me. I answered normally and he told me point blank the decision that had been taken.

What did you think?

I almost dropped my phone. I could hear in his voice that he was annoyed. It must not have been easy for him to call me to tell me such things. Knowing him, and knowing the whole story, I know where that comes from. It's not Sébastien that I'm after, and when he started to explain to me the why and the how, I defended myself. I gave my version and he only validated it. That is the problem.

Exactly, what are you accused of?

I was told “not involved”, “not motivated”, “too many navigation errors”, but from the tests, there was no communication with this team. I had several video interviews with my engineer to give them directions and thus make a car for the Dakar, and when we arrived for the tests, it was clear that they had not listened to anything. They forgot that it wasn't part of the circuit! It wasn't the Prodrive I knew. It was completely unstructured, in the English style with only five mechanics. When we tested with Peugeot , there were certainly three cars, but that represented 100 people. There, there were 48 of us, I think, and there were only 20 working! Even at PH Sport (in 2019. Editor’s note), there were more people on the car!

Find the entire interview with Daniel Elena in issue 2304 of AUTOhebdo available in digital version.