“We took it upon ourselves to make the fifth edition of Saudi Arabia the toughest one since the race came to the Middle East”, warned the director of the rally, David Castera.
The 46th Dakar, which starts in AlUla on 5 January and finishes in Yanbu, on the shores of the Red Sea, after a 7,891 km trek on roads, tracks and dunes, including 4,727 km of specials.
One of the challenges introduces a new paradigm for exploring the Empty Quarter desert: “48h chrono” held over two days in which the competitors, scattered among eight bivouacs, will be basically left to their own devices.
The riders, drivers and co-drivers of 354 vehicles are preparing to face this formidable route, which will also set the scene for the opening round of the third season of the World Rally-Raid Championships (W2RC): 137 motorbikes and 10 quads in the FIM race and —as per the FIA’s newly introduced terminology— 72 Ultimate cars (T1 and T2), 42 Challenger cars (T3), 36 SSVs (T4) and 46 Trucks (T5).
The fourth edition of the Dakar Classic, a regularity race for 20th-century vehicles, will take place over a distance of 7,366 km, including 3,586 km of timed sections.
The first week is the toughest. The competitors will sweep past volcanic landscapes… while tackling long, hard stages on a variety of terrain from the outset. The marathon stage, a two-day challenge in which the competitors will have to pace themselves, comes as early as stage 3.
At the end of the week, the concept goes one step further with the introduction of a “48h chrono”: the clang of a bell will order every single competitor to halt their vehicle and spend the night under a starlit canopy before getting back on the move at sunrise.
In practice, the time limit will be 4 pm. When the clock strikes four, the entrants will have to stop at the next of the six rest areas that have been set up across the course of the stage.
Following this “race within a race”, which could well cause an upset on the leaderboard is followed by what will be a very welcome rest day in Riyadh.
The second week has all the ingredients needed to keep competitors on their toes. Alternating extreme stages and routes that will give entrants a bit of a breather, the competitors in pursuit will get several opportunities to surge up the standings on the road to Al Duwadimi, on the return trip to AlUla or in the final approach to Yanbu.
Until the eve of the finale, which features the toughest stage of the second week, the odd-numbered stages offer the best risk-to-reward ratio, although the competitors will have to keep their eyes peeled to dodge the navigational pitfalls that litter the desert throughout this new Saudi challenge.
