Dacia has considerably of a cult following in automotive circles. Adored for its no-fuss method to motoring, inexpensive asking costs and surprisingly succesful machines, the Romanian model (now a agency fixture of the Renault Group) sells a small however dependable line of household SUVs and hatchbacks to Europe.
The place it as soon as raided the Renault elements bins and lower prices by eradicating creature comforts the place it may, Dacia now has a powerful visible and model id of its personal.
The Duster loves exploring the good outdoor with a tent bolted to its roof (or inside it), for instance, whereas the diminutive electrical Spring was among the many greatest worth EVs when it launched.
However the marque has entered totally new territory with its 335bhp off-road behemoth: the Dakar Rally-conquering Sandrider.
Getting my inside organs rearranged by the champ Nasser Al-Attiyah in his menacing Dacia Sandrider. pic.twitter.com/sHEaDyj1deJune 27, 2025
“There’s nothing just like the Dakar Rally. You must be bodily and mentally match, in a position to spend 14 or 15 hours driving the hardest terrain for 15 days,” explains Dacia Sandrider driver and five-time Dakar champion Nasser Al-Attiyah.
“It takes a whole lot of preparation and a particular automobile to even end, not to mention win.”
The race Al-Attiyah is referring to is usually considered one of the crucial grueling on the World Rally-Raid calendar, protecting nearly 5,000 miles over 14 days of racing by means of the deserts, dunes, rocks, mud and the tough terrain of Saudi Arabia.
It’s a far cry from the off-road jaunt that when began in Paris and resulted in Dakar, Senegal, with all method of extremely tuned bikes, automobiles, vans, classics and even quad bikes now competing to be topped champion.
The Dacia Sandrider competes on the very highest stage, coming into the World Rally-Raid Championship within the Final T1+ class, which is reserved for these purpose-built machines that push the boundaries of expertise.
In Dacia’s case, it’s working sustainable fuels in a automobile that appears like nothing else on the planet… a larger-than-life, ultra-futuristic Batmobile that has been engineered to bash boulders slightly than Gotham Metropolis unhealthy guys.
Riders of the storm
Climbing into Dacia’s Sandrider isn’t any imply feat, because it requires a sure stage of flexibility that this getting older author lacks. With helmet on, it takes an enormous step as much as attain the cockpit due to the large shock absorbers and 350mm of suspension journey.
The automobile itself was developed by iconic British rally and race engineering outfit Prodrive, which took care of the tubular chassis, carbon-fiber physique work and fettled the 3-liter, twin-turbo V6 engine that powers the machine.
Dacia says that its drivers additionally had loads of enter through the design course of, which explains the intelligent anti-reflective paint used on the higher a part of the dashboard to scale back desert glare and the modular inside that may be versatile to fulfill the wants of the occupants.
As I’m strapped into the Sabelt race harnesses, driver Nasser Al-Attiyah adjusts a number of the controls from the baffling array of switchgear dotted across the cabin. Seeing as I’m within the navigators seat, I’m merely confronted with a clean house the place two digital shows would sit throughout competitors.
Throughout occasions like Dakar, the staff solely receives the race e book minutes earlier than hitting the beginning line, so each competitor is successfully stepping into blind. Navigational directions, together with warnings over any upcoming hazards, are delivered to the driving force always by way of the co-pilot.
“If I miss an official checkpoint, which solely measure 50m in radius, there isn’t any turning again. We’ve to take the time penalty and transfer on,” explains Al-Attiyah’s co-pilot Édouard Boulanger. “Hardly a second goes by throughout a race the place I’m not feeding Nasser data and a few of these races are greater than 1,000km,” he provides.
Fortunately I don’t have this activity, as we’re at Al-Attiyah’s race camp within the mountains outdoors of Barcelona and, seeing as it’s primarily his again backyard, the man know his approach round.
We method the beginning line, Al-Attiyah offers me a nod after which he flooring it, the Sandrider lurching off the road with the form of brutal cacophony of noise, acceleration and dirt that an EV may solely dream of manufacturing.
The primary nook approaches in a break up second and Al-Attiyah pulls the large hydraulic handbrake, effortlessly pirouetting across the dusty course. Hitting unfathomable speeds, we cling to sheer drops, navigate monumental boulders and dance throughout the floor.
“Here is the soar,” Al-Attiyah says with a smile and… bam! A second of weightlessness because the Sandrider flies by means of the air earlier than touchdown with hefty however masterfully managed thump.
The Sandrider takes all of it in its stride, with the suspension system doing an nearly mystical job of absorbing the abuse.
Even after 5 minutes within the passenger seat, my abs are sore from tensing, my neck is taut and my backbone has taken a battering. Doing that for 2 weeks by means of an precise desert seems like insanity to me.
Sustained efficiency
Throughout a typical race, Al-Attiyah and his co-driver will eat someplace within the area of six to seven liters of water.
That’s quite a bit, however nothing contemplating the Dacia Sandrider’s 360bhp V6 engine guzzles round 560-liters of gas throughout the identical time. That is regardless of the engineering staff managing to chop the burden by 15kg, in comparison with comparable prototypes, and scale back drag by 10%.
To offset a few of its emissions, Dacia partnered with Aramco to make the most of its artificial fuels, that are a lower-carbon possibility that mix renewable hydrogen with sequestered CO2 to scale back the general footprint.
In keeping with Aramco, its biofuels might be shaped from non-food-competing sources similar to bio-waste, industrial waste, or family waste. Its commonest gas is ethanol made out of corn or sugarcane residue, for instance.
Regardless of being a bio-fuel, Aramco’s product might be dropped straight into the Sandrider’s engines with no tweaks or tuning required. It performs and handles like some other fossil gas, albeit one which prices two or 3 times as a lot.
Quickly, most high-profile racing occasions might be powered by extra sustainable bio-fuels and, as the prices scale back, they might find yourself making their approach onto public forecourts.
World Rally-Raid and the Dakar race specifically are famed for breeding innovation, and this yr’s Mission 1000 class was designed to permit producers to experiment with extra environmentally pleasant propulsion applied sciences.
Segway was the one producer to discipline a pure electrical automobile, within the type of its X1000 bike – which sports activities a 14.5kWh battery and a 50kW motor that recorded a mind-bending max pace of 87mph throughout Dakar and which accomplished the total 1,000km (621 mile) course.
Along with this, a consortium that included Kawasaki, Suzuki, Honda and Yamaha fielded a bespoke buggy that was powered by totally by hydrogen. It too completed the course with out problem.
This is perhaps the primary time Dacia has jumped head-first into motor racing, however it’s already notching up the wins, with a 1-2 end within the Rally du Maroc and a victory in Abu Dhabi proving highlights.
Higher nonetheless, Al-Attiyah is main the general FIA World Rally-Raid Championship within the Final division, beating drivers from extra established racing entities similar to Toyota, Ford and Mini.
Whereas it’s unlikely we are going to see any of this expertise trickle down into Dacia’s modest highway automobile vary (no rally-spec Duster but), it backs up the model’s philosophy of powerful, succesful machines that carry out effectively past what the sticker worth would recommend.
