Loeb and Peugeot head entry list for Silk Way Rally

The 15-day long event, which starts in Moscow and finishes in Beijing after passing through Kazakhstan, will kick off with exactly 100 cars and 24 trucks competing, including three factory Peugeot 2008DKR16 machines.

Rally legend Loeb and co-driver Daniel Elena will make their debut in the event, the Frenchman taking on his third cross-country rally after this year's Dakar and the 2015 Morocco Rally.

He will be joined by defending Dakar champion Stephane Peterhansel, who also won last year's Silk Way Rally for Peugeot, and Cyril Despres.

The French team's fourth driver from Dakar, Carlos Sainz, will miss the Silk Way due to taking part in another cross-country event, the Baja Aragon.

"While we have no experience of the Russian and Kazakh stages, the Chinese part will be familiar to what we raced on last year," said Peugeot Sport director Bruno Famin.

"This year's event will be a promising one, as the drivers will be challenged from both sporting and human sides."

New lineup for Mini X-Raid

With Toyota not participating, Peugeot's biggest rival is set to be the X-Raid Mini squad, even though the German team will enter the event with two new drivers.

Nasser Al-Attiyah and Nani Roma have both joined the Overdrive Toyota team - which is absent from the Silk Way entry list - and are replaced by two former drivers of the Japanese manufacturer.

Part-time WRC privateer Yazeed Al-Rajhi and Russian Vladimir Vasilyev will spearhead Mini's attack.

Additional reporting by Jean-Philippe Vennin