Video: Sebastien Loeb will contest the 2016 Dakar with Peugeot

In anyone’s book, Sebastien Loeb is a handy driver.

Between 2004 and 2012, the Frenchman single-handedly re-wrote the rallying record books, winning the WRC championship an unprecedented nine times on the bounce.

And if he had one, Loeb's LinkedIn page would also have him down as an X-Games champion, WTCC pilot, Le Mans 24-hour runner-up and current King of the Hill. That’s after that heroic torpedoing run up Pikes Peak saw him obliterate the record by a massive ninety-two seconds.

However there’s one halo event Loeb's never had a crack at: the Dakar Rally.

Until now. Today, it was announced that Loeb has joined forces with Peugeot Sport to have a go at next January’s Dakar Rally, along with his longstanding navigator, Daniel Elena.

Seb will be piloting the new lower, wider, more powerful DKR 2016 we showed you the other week, along with a full-fat supergroup of off-road celebs.

They include 53 year old rally veteran Carlos Sainz, 11-time Dakar winner Stéphane Peterhansel, and Cyril Despres – a man who has won the Dakar five times on a motorbike. 

Trust us, you’ll have to look very, very hard to find a better cauldron of experience. 

To announce this exciting new driver line-up, Red Bull – being a slightly zany media company – didn’t decide to get all four drivers to do big skids in the desert. Instead, the racing aces had to act. Oh dear.

Now, we’ve seen this before when well-known thespians Jenson Button and Fernado Alonso released a fingers-down-the-blackboard Back To The Future-themed promotional video. 

Racers being actors didn’t work then. And unfortunately, as you can see, it hasn’t worked now. 

But Golden Globes aren’t what Peugeot is after. It wants outright Dakar wins. And even though there has never been a rookie winner at the Dakar, if there was ever a man to break the mould, it’s Seb Loeb.