Sébastien Loeb: "We ended up in Lategan's dust"

Dakar 2026 | Prologue | YANBU > YANBU
January 3 ^rd 2026 - 15:43 [GMT + 3]

Sébastien Loeb came in seventeenth, 34 seconds down. The Frenchman has not achieved his goal of being one of the fifteen drivers who will get to pick their starting positions for tomorrow in a few hours.

"We delivered a decent performance. We were held up at the end because we ended up in Lategan's dust after he had a puncture. I lost the line two or three times over the last few kilometres. And, in a prologue like this, seconds add up in no time. I definitely lost time in the special because of that. Apart from that, the pace was fine.

We want to be able to choose a decent starting position for tomorrow, even if the prologue doesn't count towards the race classification. But it's important to have at least some options tonight when decisions are made. I haven't thought yet about which one is the right call. I don't want to start first, not thirtieth either, so somewhere in between. We'll have to think it through."