ONLINE! DAKAR 2021
RALLY HEADLINES
South American Favorite Kevin Benavides/(Argentina)
for the first time in Dakar Rally history, takes the Moto win in the 2021 DAKAR Rally.
(CLICK ON 'MAP' FAR LEFT SIDE)
2021 LAUNCH & LIVE! DAKAR ARCHIVES
*DAKAR 2021 Rally Course Map*
*DAKAR 2021 Rally Vids & Pics*
*JEDDAH KSA PORT - START & FINISH*
*PROLOGUE TIMED EVENTS JANUARY 1 & 2*
*Drivers Meeting Schedule*
*Thursday, Dec. 31, 7:30pm (KSA)
*Dakar Classic Category, 8:30pm (KSA)
*Dates and opening hours*Wednesday, December 30: 4 PM-12 AMThursday, December 31: 4 pm–12amFriday, January 1: 4 pm – 12amSaturday, January 2: 3pm – 12am | Dakar Podium: 4 pm - 10am.(All local times)
*Dakar Podcast Preview Show*
*SHAKEDOWN - QUALIFIERS SCHEDULE AND LOCATION*
The British Prodrive-built, Bahraini-backed BRX T1. 'Bahrain Raid Extreme', premiere of the "BRX", T1 class entry at DAKAR 2021.
Pictured above. The Speed Test Today! Thursday, Dec 31.LIVE! From Shakedown, the Plaster City
of Saudi Arabia, just outside of Jeddah.
*THE NEW DAKAR 2021 ELECTRONIC ROAD-BOOK*
THE DETAILS
*BRX EXCLUSIVE*
Fresh Updates!
Dakar 2021, “race of co-drivers”, says Loeb.
The opening week of this year’s Dakar has proved to be challenging from a navigational point of view
Sebastien Loeb believes the navigational challenges posed to the crews in the 2021 Dakar Rally has taken the emphasis away from the drivers and made it a “race of co-drivers”. With even some of the most experienced drivers in the field running off course after losing their way in Saudi Arabia’s deserts. Three-time champion and X-raid Mini driver Carlos Sainz was particularly vocal after his latest navigational drama in Stage 5, saying the event, “feels more like a gymkhana than a rally” and he’s never seen so many drivers getting lost in the event before. Loeb, who is out of contention for top honors after a week fraught with navigational errors, punctures and a broken suspension arm, believes he “cannot make the difference” in this year’s Dakar and co-drivers have a bigger say in determining the outcome of the rally.
“We need to find the right direction”, said the Bahrain Raid Xtreme driver, who is again competing with long-time navigator Daniel Elena. “It’s quite tricky because the tracks are not really visible. We follow the tracks and we arrive to the point where the tracks disappear and there are plenty of lines going everywhere and we don’t know what to do.“So we are turning from point to point in many rocky areas and it is no fun to drive. The times we were lost we were on a track, so it is quite difficult to understand what to do.“I don’t want to criticize the road-book. This is more a question for the co-driver, but honestly it may be the different terrain, but compared to the race in South America, the navigation is much more aggressive this year. “The truth is that as a driver I cannot make the difference. I do what I’m told to do. It’s the race of co-drivers, not the race of drivers”.
Following a limited trial in the inaugural Saudi-based Dakar last year, road-books are now handed to drivers just 15 minutes before the start of each stage as opposed to the previous day. This leaves crews with no time to add their own notes and additional information, but organizer ASO has tried to compensate for this by making road-books more detailed.
Asked for his thoughts on the new 'roadbook' philosophy introduced for 2021, Nasser Al-Attiyah’s co-driver Mathieu Baumel said: “Being a new system, those who adapt quicker will have an advantage. “In fact the roadbooks are well done, it’s more a question of interpretation of the notes and transfer them to the driver. In addition, you need to familiarize with the new way of working with the iPad [which replaces traditional paper notes] until it becomes automatic.“What does it change compared to last year? On the same box you can have two or three changes of CAP. There is a lot of information on the same box, even very small, and sometimes it is not clear which piste you need to take to validate a hidden way. “The truth is that this first week the navigation was very aggressive and a small mistake can cost a lot of time. “When the note is not clear we have to slow down. In these cases, I raise my left hand. As Nasser sees my hand he slows down, and then I give him the sign when he can push again. I think it’s better to slow down five seconds than to lose ourselves.”
Loeb stranded in stage 5 after broken suspension arm.
Sebastien Loeb’s hopes of a strong finish on his return to the Dakar Rally received a major blow on Friday, January 8, when he broke a suspension arm on his Prodrive-built BRX1 contender.
Having already been hit by a series of issues in the opening five stages of the rally, including punctures, navigational errors and a speeding penalty that prompted him to label the stewards “incompetent”, the nine-time World Rally champion was left stranded 97km into the shortened Stage 6 between Al Qaisumah and Ha'il on Friday. The Frenchman had set the fifth-fastest time in the first 48km, just 37 seconds behind the X-raid Mini of Carlos Sainz, before coming to a halt with a broken suspension arm. Loeb is currently awaiting the arrival of Bahrain Raid Xtreme team's assistance crew, which will begin repairs on his car to ensure he can make it to the finish ahead of the rest day tomorrow (Saturday). The BRX team’s objective is to gain as much mileage as possible on its debut with its new buggy, whose development was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dakar stewards explain penalty which left Loeb furious
Prior to the start of Friday’s stage, Loeb had been 10th overall in the standings, 1hr40m07s down on leader Stephane Peterhansel of X-raid Mini.After Stage 5, the Frenchman said: “For this Dakar, so much is about navigation. In my first Dakar, a driver could make more of a difference because we were driving on tracks and the driving was important. Now, the difference a driver can make by driving fast is very small, compared to what we lose by searching for waypoints.” With Loeb dropping out of contention, BRX’s hopes of a top 10 finish on its debut rest on 2014 champion Nani Roma, who moved up to seventh in the standings after Stage 5. The Spanish driver has had a strong run in Stage 6 so far, and was sitting fifth at the sixth waypoint of the day. ASO has explained the reasoning behind the penalty handed to Sebastien Loeb in the 2021 Dakar Rally after the Frenchman labelled the stewards “incompetent” over their decision. Loeb was handed a five-minute penalty for exceeding the speed limit in Stage 4 on Wednesday, where he had been the fourth fastest, 2m36s behind winner and factory Toyota driver Nasser Al-Attiyah. This relegated the Bahrain Raid Xtreme driver to seventh place in the stage and the same position in the overall classification, 52m14s minutes down on leader Stephane Peterhansel (X-raid Mini). The French driver, a nine-time World Rally champion, was left furious with the penalty and blamed a GPS bug for not receiving an alarm about the slow zone. Writing on his social media accounts, Loeb said, “there is no room for incompetence or incompetents” in an event of Dakar’s scale and felt the penalty was too extreme for an offense that would have only gained him "two-to-three seconds". Responding to Loeb’s remarks, Cars Race director Luis Gomez said the French driver exceeded the speed limit by 77km/h in an area demarcated as a 30km/h zone."It was a DZ [speed limit zone] where they had to enter at a certain [limited] speed,” Gomez told the press. “On one section, he passed at a higher speed than indicated. This is information given by the GPS, which is passed on to us in a report."There is a clear regulation that indicates the type of penalty according to the speed he passed. The established speed was 30 km/h and he passed at 107 km/h". Loeb had claimed that “in spite of our explanations but especially in spite of the GPS system provider's admission of a problem with his equipment in our car today (something that can happen of course), the jury of stewards didn't want to know anything and decided, sitting loosely behind his desk with the only risk of spilling his coffee when we risk our lives every day in the car, to impose a penalty much higher than what this GPS ‘bug’ made us save.”
The BRX team did not file a complaint about the penalty - and has no plans to do so in the future. "Sebastien Loeb has not come to see us, nobody has called us, nobody has made any complaint about this issue. That's why we were surprised this morning to discover the messages on social networks," Javier Soler, President of the College Stewards told the press. For his part, Dakar director David Castera explained how the participants' GPS works in situations of this type, making it clear that the indication of the start of the speed control appears both on the roadbook and on the positioning system. "The GPS beeps every time a waypoint is validated", Castera said. "When you reach a speed-limited zone, the GPS lights up at 800 metres and indicates with an arrow how to get to the speed-controlled zone. From then on, you have 180 metres to stop." From what I understand of what has happened, Sebastien does not pay attention to his co-driver's instructions, but relies on the beep to stop. It is not the function of the whistle. The function of the whistle is to indicate that a WP has been validated. “You also have the information on the roadbook and on the tablet. He was coming very fast and was waiting for a beep. The problem is that it didn't sound (that may be) or that he didn't hear it... and that's the problem." When he realized it, he slammed on the brakes, but it was too late. I think it's a huge risk to trust that whistle. In my personal experience [as a co-driver] with Stephane [Peterhansel] and Cyril [Despres], the driver should never trust the whistle, but the co-driver. There is a lot to lose and little to gain. Dakar stewards explain penalty which left Loeb furious, "This isn't the Dakar"
Loeb slams stewards over Dakar Rally speeding penalty
In the rulebook of the 2021 Dakar for the car, truck and SSV categories, the following is clearly stated in article 37P3.1: "If a Competitor disagrees with the infringements noted, he must make a written protest, accompanied by a deposit, which he must then hand to the Clerk of Course within a half hour of notification, so that the GPS can be further examined". Bahrain Raid Xtreme refused to make such a complaint. It also states that "any speeding recorded by the GPS will be penalized by the Clerk of Course". In the case of Loeb, who received a five-minute penalty (plus a fine of €300), it is because the GPS registered "an impulse of more than 40 km/h difference with the established speed limit.”
On-Going Reporting
The British Prodrive-built, Bahraini-backed BRX T1. 'Bahrain Raid Extreme', premiere of the "BRX", T1 class entry at DAKAR 2021.
Bahrain Raid Xtreme, The New DAKAR
Britain’s all-new, multi-multi-million-dollar desert racer – the Prodrive-built, Bahraini-backed BRX T1 – is poised to start its first-ever event: the world-famous Dakar Rally.
BRX stands for Bahrain Raid Xtreme, The Kingdom of Bahrain's new joint venture set up with British motorsport expert Prodrive. With this new racing project led by Prodrive chairman (and 1981 WRC champion co-driver) David Richards, BRX’s bespoke Dakar Rally T1 cars will aim for the overall win in 2021, each powered by a 400-horsepower, twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V6. What's more, the four-wheel-drive T1 will be driven by nine-time WRC champion Sébastien Loeb, as well as Nani Roma, who's one of only three drivers to win the Dakar Rally on both two and four wheels.
To make the race cars stand out as well, the T1's composite body was designed by Callum, the studio set up by former Jaguar design chief Ian Callum. The British company's other recent projects include the limited edition Aston Martin Vanquish 25 produced by R-Reforged. When it comes to his latest design, Ian Callum had this to add: "We wanted to give the car a unique silhouette. A conscious shape suited to an extreme vehicle, rather than just functional form".
British motorsport and engineering group Prodrive has been around since 1984 and over the years has built numerous successful race and rally cars. We're talking the Porsche 911 SC RS of the 1980s, Subaru Impreza WRX World Rally cars of the 1990s and 2000s, and an assortment of GT cars for Aston Martin and other teams. Now it's turned its attention toward the grueling Dakar Rally. Back in February, Prodrive teamed up with Bahrain, more specifically the country's Mumtalakat Sovereign Wealth Fund, which also owns McLaren, to establish the new subsidiary Prodrive International whose task was to design and manufacture a notable off-roader in time for the 2021 Dakar Rally.
After releasing the first computer-generated images in June, Prodrive in November, finally revealed the new off-roader. It's called the "BRX Hunter", and it's been developed for the Dakar Rally's T1 Group premier car category. The 2021 Dakar Rally takes place in January, in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Middle Eastern country also hosted the 2020 rally, where the Bahrain-sponsored JCW X-Raid team claimed victory thanks to the efforts of Carlos Sainz, Sr. and Lucas Cruz.
This time, Bahrain and Prodrive have their own team, BRX (Bahrain Raid Xtreme). The team is run by Prodrive founder David Richards and has signed Sebastien Loeb and Nani Roma as drivers. Loeb has also been picked as a driver for the X44 Extreme E team started by Formula One's Lewis Hamilton. Loeb will be driving alongside Cristina Gutierrez in the electric off-road series.
The 'Hunter' is powered by a mid-mounted V-6, in this case a 3.5-liter twin-turbocharged V-6 sourced from Ford. The engine has been tuned to deliver 400 horsepower and 516 pound-feet of torque and drives all four wheels. Prodrive has said it is willing to build additional Hunters for any interested customer teams, and there's also the possibility of a road-going version should demand be sufficient. You might be wondering why Bahrain is backing its own Dakar entry. According to Khalid Al Rumaihi, who heads the Mumtalakat Sovereign Wealth Fund, it's part of Bahrain’s desire to showcase the Middle East to the world.
The T1’s engine is a Prodrive-developed version of Ford’s twin-turbocharged 3.5-litre V6, mounted low and well back in the chassis compared with a front-engined road car. Fully fueled for its long driving stints, the car can carry 500 litres of petrol in a centrally mounted tank below and behind the driver and navigator, so it will weigh close to 2500kg at the start.
Once it’s proven in future events, Prodrive will look to offer the T1 as a production-ready racer to clients around the world.
It might even appear, eventually, as an extreme road car – a self-styled “Ferrari of the desert”.
Meanwhile, the Prodrive-BRX team sees part of its mission as being to raise awareness of desert endurance racing in the english speaking motorsports and general retail worlds. Prodrive founder and boss Richards sees this as a promising new division to stand alongside its Aston Martin Racing and advanced engineering consultancy businesses.
On its Dakar prospects, Richards is bullish. “I believe we will have the fastest car and two of the best drivers,” he says. “Our engine is in great shape and we’ve had a very successful 6000km of testing. But successful desert racing needs plenty of luck, and we have to acknowledge three factors that could upset our best efforts. “One is navigation: they say the potential for getting lost will be great. Another is punctures: we didn’t have them on test, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be a problem when the event gets going. And then there are all the problems we don’t even know about yet. You need luck, as I say; in our first year, we will need as much as we can get”.
The Prodrive-BRX (for Bahraini Rally Xtreme) team is based in Prodrive’s Banbury headquarters and consists of two cars: one driven by Frenchman Sébastien Loeb, nine times a World Rally Champion, the other by Spaniard Joan ‘Nani’ Roma, who has entered every Dakar since 1996 and won it both on a motorcycle (KTM, 2004) and in a car (Mini, 2014).
Roma has done most of Prodrive’s latest T1 development testing, at venues in the UK and Dubai. During November, he spent nearly two weeks at Millbrook test track in Bedfordshire, driving “harder than you’d go in the event, except by accident”, trying to discover what would break first on the car under extreme treatment. The tests ended with some relatively minor wheel bearing issues and a propshaft failure (now fixed), plus a lot of plaudits for his engineering team about the handling and robustness of the new car.Loeb is also pleased with the car’s sophisticated design and toughness (see interview, above right). Testing of back-up machinery is continuing while the two team cars get their last-minute looks and Prodrive’s team will fly to Jeddah over Christmas to begin the long campaign.
The 2021 Dakar Rally will be one of the biggest motorsport events ever staged: there are 75 cars, 42 trucks and 110 motorcycles entered from 19 countries. Including back-up vehicles, there are expected to be 679 vehicles and 15 helicopters on the course in total. They will cover an all-new route that includes more than 3000 miles of competitive sections that entrants will never have seen before. It’s rumored to include more varied driving terrain and more difficult navigation tests than in recent events and ends with a mammoth 320-mile ‘showdown’ competitive section on the penultimate day, where the organizers say the time differences between competitors “could be huge”.
This remarkably sleek body racer, designed by former Aston Martin and Jaguar designer Ian Callum, is making waves. The Dakar regulations allow both two-wheel-drive and four-wheel drive cars. Prodrive has chosen the latter for its innately greater traction under braking and acceleration, despite having to cope with a higher minimum dry weight (1850kg) plus curbs on engine power (400bhp), top speed (107mph) and suspension travel compared with competitive 2WD designs.
The T1 project’s chief engineer, Paul Doe, says the event’s regulations are evolving in favour of 4x4s and may eventually outlaw 2WD designs.
The team’s “marquee signing”, Loeb, is a seasoned Dakar campaigner but a new recruit to 4x4 Dakar cars, having driven a RWD Peugeot on the previous four events, scoring a best second place outright in 2017. Doe expects the T1 to handle more like a firmly suspended WRC car than the Peugeot buggy with its “gangly” suspension and near-unlimited wheel travel. “Ours is closer in feel to the rally cars of his earlier career”, says Doe. “I believe he will see that as an advantage”.
Prodrive’s first venture into motorsports was with the Rothmans Porsche Rally Team, which won the inaugural FIA Middle East Rally Championship in 1984. Remembering that off-road adventure vividly, Prodrive boss David Richards expressed plenty of optimism regarding their chances next year.
"Our design team has been working on the car for over nine months", Richards said. "We have already been evaluating the engine on our transient dyno in Banbury and the first chassis is now being assembled in our workshop. The formation of a new team is incredibly exciting for everyone involved, and we truly believe we have created a team and car that is perfect to take on the Dakar Rally".
"I’ll be disappointed if, when you are sitting on the start line, everybody doesn’t see us as a potential winner", he concluded.
As one of the most experienced drivers out there with 24 consecutive Dakar entries under his belt, Nani Roma will be undertaking thousands of miles of testing in both Europe and the Middle East in the coming months. Like his Spanish teammate, famous Frenchman Sébastien Loeb also knows what it takes to finish a Dakar, having competed four times with Peugeot to claim two podiums in the last five years.
As you can probably tell from this lineup, The Kingdom of Bahrain has big ambitions for the 2021 Dakar Rally, and the T1 by Prodrive is the car that could deliver the precious trophy. Be that with, or without every bit of Callum's fancy body by the end of the race.
Baja Racing News LIVE! DAKAR 2021
________________________
Red Bull EXCLUSIVE!
*Blade Hilderbrand BAJA 500 2020 Wreck Story*
What started out as a really very expensive Red Bull motorsports effort at the Baja 500 to launch the Hilderbrand UTV racing team, ended as a catastrophically devastating, both financially and team image destruction crash at the 2020 Baja 500 in Mexico and we have the EXCLUSIVE Story.
Before the team even started at Ensenada, Mexico, the Red Bull financial tab on this project was over $120,000 US!
That's before the green flag even waved this UTV project at the start of the event.
Blade Hildebrand and Mario Gutierrez crash out at the Baja 500 2020
"The multi-talented racing prodigy with his heart set on off-road glory
Born and raised in California’s Yucca Valley, Blade Hildebrand’s racing career began at the age of four, racing mini-moto, go karts and BMX, and the family had put a dirt bike team together by the time Blade was five.By the age of eight he was a selected participant in the 2007 KTM Jr. Super-Cross Challenge in Seattle, USA. By his mid-teens Blade decided to join the off-road pros on four wheels and in 2016 he won the SNORE 5-Unlimited Title Championship, alongside an eighth-placed overall series finish for the year.
Next, Blade stepped into a single-seater Class 10 car and on day one, first time out, he achieved a first-placed finish in Best in the Desert (BITD) and was the top qualifer (from 70-plus entries) at Rage at the River/SNORE. Late in the season, Blade also entered into the non-winged sprint car series and took a third-placed season points finish. It was at Rage at the River, where, well-known driver and team-owner Robby Gordon approached Blade about potentially racing Stadium Super Trucks. Blade consequently raced for Gordon in 2017, 2018 and 2019 and it became clear that he had a particular ability for desert racing. (And for having a checkbook to cover all of his mistakes) That led to Gordon handing Blade an opportunity to race in a side-by-side car at the 2019 Dakar at just 20 years of age – and Blade ended up winning the OP.1 class over a gruelling 3,107 miles in 75h 12m 44s.
It was back to the Dakar in 2020 with the Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team USA, racing the OT3 by Overdrive in the UTV/SxS class and despite being forced out of contention in Stage 2, Blade still won Stages 7 and 9 under Dakar Experience rules. This incredibly versatile and multi-skilled driver has his heart set on more off-road glory, saying:
“There’s no other feeling like it in the world. It’s so unpredictable. So much fun.”"
Red Bull EXCLUSIVE LOADING NOW>>>
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REBELLION, the official timekeepers of the Dakar Rally 2021, from January 3-15 – invite you to tag along on the world’s most extreme, unique adventure! on Baja Racing News Live!
"The Dakar Rally is an incredible adventure where you and your car are pushed to the absolute limit, the epitome of endurance,’ states Alexandre Pesci, President of REBELLION and 2021 Dakar Rally driver.
Returning as the official timekeepers of the 43rd competition, REBELLION – an independent geneva-based brand dedicated to unique timepieces and cars – know a thing or two about endurance. their passion for endurance intertwines motor racing, lifestyle and fashion.
The mythical 'Dakar' takes to the daunting yet stunning desert landscapes of Saudi Arabia from January 3-15, 2021. Starting at the port of Jeddah in the south, the route is composed of 12 stages with the marathon switching from dunes to sandy expanses throughout, and even passing by the ancient, lonely carvings of Madain Saleh after a week of riding.
More than 500 experiences and amateur drivers join the international rally in cars, trucks, motorcycles and more, before finally returning to the port city on the shores of the famed Red Sea on January 15.
This rally challenges drivers, crews and mechanics to the limit, as Alexandre Pesci dutifully found on his – and REBELLION racing’s – first outing last year, in the Dakar Rally 2020.
"I was a complete novice last year. it was my first race ever, and the other competitors told me I was crazy to start with the most difficult event", explains Alexandre.
"I did perhaps 10 days of test driving and that is it. I spent the rest of my time doing physical training so that I could cope with 12 days and 8,000 km of racing. at everyone’s surprise, I finished 11th in my class and 3rd place as a rookie".
REBELLION joins the Dakar Rally 2021 with two cars: one driven by Alexandre; the second driven by Romain Dumas, winner among others of the 24 hours of Le Mans and record holder of the Pikes Peak Hill Climb race.
The rebels’ racing models adorn a red, white and black colorway with the logo sported on the side.
Internally, the vehicle’s solid base is fashioned on a Dakar winner two-wheel drive Peugeot with an aspirated FORD Mustang V8 engine. they build upon the previous edition, meeting the race’s strict guidelines on weight and horsepower (400 hp max), and creatively interpret solutions for 2021.
"We worked to improve the car in many areas compared to last year", begins Alexandre. "The engine now has 20% more torque thanks to a new induction system and direct fuel injection, the roof was lowered and the back of the car is completely different to improve the aerodynamics, the weight distribution has been reviewed, and finally the shock absorbers are different".
Even with such technical and trialed designs, REBELLION’s two drivers and their cars are maintained by a support truck in the race as well as two additional trucks for 14 staff members, spares and, especially, tires. RD Limited are not only builders of the Rebellion DXX Buggies, they also provide all the race support.
‘RD limited’s support throughout the race is key. They basically rebuild the vehicles each night so that we are ready to tackle the next day’s stage in the best possible condition,’ explains Alexandre Pesci.
As the official timekeepers of the Dakar Rally 2021, REBELLION proves that accuracy, robustness and technicality is imperative to their designs as they battle the most extreme, sandy environments.
Good maintenance is also essential to endurance. as such, two special edition watches – the REBELLION timepieces twenty-one three hands and predator chronograph – join the race as equally as uncompromising.
Gold accents and black metal highlights, both timepieces mirror the buggies’ mechanical performance-oriented design for endurance.
Tag along on the world’s most extreme adventure, watch out for timepiece reveals, and stay tuned as REBELLION races…Exclusively on Baja Racing News Live!
"To me, endurance is the epitome of racing. Toughness and precision are the themes that overlap between our watches and racing", concludes Alexandre Pesci, President of REBELLION and rally driver of the Dakar 2021.
Dakar 2021 is ready to race in spite of the many challenges
facing organizers and competitors to race in the two-week epic in Saudi
Arabia.
DAKAR Rally Live Breaks Global LockDown!
With international travel all but at a standstill, competitors, teams
and officials gathered at various points before being chartered into
Jeddah.
They will now isolate for three days before being
tested for Covid-19, after which they will be released into their
‘bubbles’ within a greater Dakar bubble to prepare for the prologue on
Saturday, January 2 and the race proper starting Sunday, January 3 and
running through to Friday, January 15.
In
spite of the challenges, the 43rd Dakar promises to be supreme once it
gets under way with over 4800 km of racing over two weeks. Several
Southern African entries are already in Jeddah and ready to deliver on
the world stage.
Not least the proudly South African
Gazoo Racing Toyota Hiluxes, which are set to challenge for overall
victory, the SA-built Century-Corvettes chasing stage victories and
Botswana’s Ross Branch in the thick of the motorcycle action aboard a
factory Yamaha for the first time.
The Gazoo Toyota
challenge hinges around triple Dakar and Toyota’s 2019 winner Nasser
Al-Attiyah and Matthieu Baumel and 2009 winner, Stellenbosch race hero
Giniel De Villiers and Alex Haro Bravo. Toyota has worked and tested
throughout lockdown to be ready for Dakar 2021. The team has improved
and perfected its race Hiluxes and is ready to race with new speed
limits and fully electronic road books handed to navigators just ten
minutes before each day’s start.
A Four-Hilux Gazoo Toyota Charge
Attiyah
and de Villiers will be backed by two more factory Gazoo Toyota Racing
Hiluxes for perhaps Dakar 2021’s most exciting rookie combination. Henk
Lategan will be guided by former Dakar malle moto non-assistance bike
star Brett Cummings. The duo arrives in Jeddah with double 2019 and ’20
South African Cross Country Racing titles under their belts.
A
fourth all-South African Gazoo Hilux sees former SA champions Shameer
Variawa and Dennis Murphy in action too. Several other SA-built Hiluxes
can also be expected to do battle at the sharp end. Yazeed Al Rajhi and
Dirk Von Zitzewitz and Bernhard Ten Brinke and Tom Colsoul are proven
crews both capable of winning the Dakar.
All
that said, it was never going to be a cakewalk for Toyota and the Gazoo
team faces some epic competition. Least of all the Minis. Like Al
Attiyah, former double World Rally Champion Carlos Sainz and Lucas Cruz
have won the Dakar three times, including last time out. His Mini buggy
teammate Stephane Peterhansel racing alongside Edouard Boulanger, has
won the Dakar an incredible 13 times, with six of those coming on four
wheels.
Fighting an Army of Minis
And
if those two nimble rear-drive Mini dune buggies are not enough,
there’s an army of 4x4 Minis to back them up. Among them are a few truly
handy Dakar crews including Orlando Terranova and Bernardo Graue.
Expect Jakub Przygonski and Timo Gottschalk. Vladimir Vasilyev and
Dmitro Tsyro and Erik van Loon and Sebastien Delaunay to be in the thick
of it too.
Of
the established Dakar contenders, the next most competitive have to be
the Corvette V8-powered Johannesburg-built Century CR6 buggies. French
crew Mathieu Serradori and Fabian Lurquin proved the Century’s worth
with a stage win last year and he will be backed by several CR6 crews.
They
include former SA Dakar quad podium hero Brian Baragwanath, who has
2020 lady bike star Taye Perry reading his notes on their car debut. And
quick Dakar regulars Yasir Seaidan and Alexey Kuzmich too.
Don’t
ignore Sheikh Khalid Al Qassimi and Xavier Panseri and former bike
winner Cyril Despres and Michael Horn in a pair of once Dakar dominant
Peugeot 3008 DKRs. Other prospects in the fight up front include the
evergreen Martin Prokop Viktor Chytka in a Ford Raptor and Former F1
driver and Le Mans 24 expert Romain Dumas and Gilles de Turckheim in a
Rebellion.
There
is however also a new force to contend with at the Dakar. Prodrive will
be remembered for engineering Subaru’s STis to many a World Rally
Championship. Now with backing from Bahrain, the company has developed
and has entered a pair of so-called Hunter BRXs for none other than
nine-time World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb and Daniel Elena.
They
will be backed up by former Dakar car and bike winner Nani Roma and
Oliveras Carreras in a similar turbo petrol Dakar racer.
Motorcycles – it’s War!
Moving
on to the bikes, expect war as ever on two wheels. Californian Ricky
Brabec finally broke KTM’s twenty-year grip on Dakar’s top two-wheeler
trophy in 2020. He won Honda’s first race since Gilles Lalay in 1989.
Brabec will be backed by Jose Ignacio Cornejo Florimo, who has ended in
the top ten of all four of his Dakars so far. Regular red Honda chargers
Kevin Benavides and Joan Barreda Bort will both be keen on a break this
year too.
KTM will of course be out for revenge. Aussie
Toby Price has finished five of his six Dakars on the podium and won
twice. His orange factory teammates Sam Sunderland and Mattias Walkner
are also both former Dakar winners.
Yamaha is itching for
a first Dakar win since Stephane Peterhansel’s last two-wheeled win way
back in ’98. South African fans will be cheering Botswana’s multiple
SA champion Ross Branch on his well-earned first works ride on the blue
machines. Ross races for Yamaha alongside Franco Caimi, Marquis Xavier
de Soultrait and Adrien van Beveren.
Other
certain two-wheeled frontrunners include Pablo Quintanilla and Andrew
Short on the factory Husqvarnas. Also keep an eye on Lorenzo Santolino’s
factory Sherco and lady Dakar heroine Lala Sanz on a GasGas. Don’t
ignore independent KTM riders, Skyler Howes, Stefan Svitko and Joan
Pedrero Garcia.
Or Polish Husqvarna privateers Adam
Tomiczek and Maciej Giemza. The only other Southern African bike entry
is gentleman rider, Kalahari Madala James Alexander from Botswana on a
Yamaha.
A Side-by-Side Race to Cherish
The
Side-by-Side class has been evolving strongly at the Dakar and this
year’s race promises a most exciting battle. Two World Rally
Championship exponents, Kris Meeke and Wouter Rosegaar’s PH Sport and
Mattias Ekstrom and Emil Bergkvist in an X-Raid Yamaha bring extra
interest in the lightweight class. They will have their work cut out
though.
2018 Side-by-Side winner Reinaldo Varela and Maykel Justo, and former
quad winners, Josef Machacek driving with Pavel Vyoral and Sergei
Kariakin alongside Anton Vlasiuk’s Can Ams, should be right in there
too. Add former top-ten bikers Francisco Lopez Contardo alongside Juan
Pablo Latrach Vinagre. And another former biker in Gerard Farres Guell
and Armand Monleon’s Can Ams too.
Austin Jones and Gustavo Gugelmin will be looking to go better on
their rookie second last year in their Can Am. And there are two Polaris
entries for Kristen Matlock and Max Eddy Jr and Wayne Matlock and Sam
Hayes. Also keep an eye out for Nasser’s brother, Khalifa Al Attiyah and
Paolo Ceci on their debut in a Can Am.
Quad honours
should be fought out by Nicolas Cavigliasso, Alexandre Giroud, Tomas,
Kubiena, Manuel Andujar and Kamil Wisniewski. All of them were riding
Yamaha Raptors.
A Trucking Good Show
Last
but not least, the trucks. What would the Dakar be without it’s desert
storming monster trucks? Reigning champion and double winner Andrey Karginov,
Andrey Mokeev and Igor Leonov lead a four-truck Kamaz 43509 charge in
search of the Russian truck maker’s incredible sixteenth Dakar victory.
They are backed up by 2015 winner Airat Mardeev, Dmitriy Svistunov and
Akhmet Galiautdinov.
The other two Kamaz entries are for
2019 runners up Anton Shibalov, Dmitrii Nikitin and Ivan Tatarinov; with
Siarhei Viazovich Dmitry Sotnikov, Ruslan Akhmadeev and Ilgiz
Akhmetzianov in support.
Belarusian MAZ would absolutely
love to topple that Kamaz army. It has 2020 third placed man and 2018
runner-up Siaharey Vazovoch Pavel Haranin and Anton Zaparoshchanka in
the lead truck. And Aliaksei Vishneuski, Siarhei Sachuk and Maksim
Novikau as a back-up and ready to pull it off too.
Other
top truck runners include Czech crew Martin Macik, Frantisek Tomasek and
David Svanda in an Iveco and Praga crew Ales Loprais, Petr Pokora and
Khalid Alkendi. Add Martin van den Brink, Wouter de Graaff and Daniel
Kozlovsky’s Renault and Teruhito Sugawara, Hirokazu Somemiya and Yuji
Mochizuki in a Hino among several top truck entries.
An Epic Dakar Fight Lies Ahead
Dakar
commences with an 11 km prologue – a short qualifying dash near Jeddah
on Saturday 2 January to establish Sunday’s starting order.
The
actual race starts with Sunday’s 277 km stage en route to Bisha, before
457 km to Wadi Ad-Dawasir on Monday and a 403 km loop there on Tuesday.
It’s a long day Wednesday, January 6 with 337 km of racing on the 813
km run to Riyadh. before 419 km to Buraydah Thursday and a 485 km race
to Ha'il for the rest day on Saturday.
Racing resumes
with the Marathon stage – 471 km to Sakaka on Sunday where there is no
servicing allowed before the 375 km to Neom on Monday. There’s a 465 km
loop around Neom on Tuesday and then it’s 342 km of racing to Al Ula on
Wednesday. The longest racing stage follows with 511 km to Yanbu on
Thursday. Then it’s a 225 km run back to the finish at Jeddah on Friday
15 January. The entire Dakar route is new for 2021.
Each day’s action will also be webcast live
on Baja Racing News LIVE!
THE 2020 RETROSPECTIVE ON THE FIRST AMERICAN WINNER OF THE DAKAR RALLY
GREAT CONJUCTION 2020 DEC. 21
SOLAR ECLIPSE OVER SOUTH ATLANTIC DEC. 14
CLICK HERE FOR THE SPECIAL PRESENTATION
LAUNCH OF THE 2021 DAKAR RALLY!
Gary Newsome, Editor. Ensenada BC, Mexico
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