DAKAR 2023 KING OF DUNE

LIVE ! ONLINE DAKAR 2023

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DAKAR 2023 FINISH LINE FESTIVITIES!

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Stage 14 To Finish COMPLETE

 

 

The Dakar has taken the field on a trip around the Red Sea coast several times, including at the beginning of the 2023 edition, which will come to a close on the shores of the Bahia de los Muertos. 

This is an unusually fast beach special with little to no room for big changes in the standings. The competitors just need to bring it home to join the celebrations on the seafront podium.  Category: Bikes - Quads - Cars - Light Prototypes - SSV - Trucks - Classics Stage 14: Liaison: 281 km / 174.60 miles Stage: 138 km / 85.74 miles

 

 

 

Baja Safari's Prodrive/GCK Motorsports

Pilot Guerlain Chicherit

Takes Final Stage 14 in DAKAR 2023!

 

 

 

CLICK HERE FOR THE OFFICIAL STAGE RESULTS FROM REST DAY TO THE FINISH OF THE RALLY HERE

 

CLICK HERE FOR THE OFFICIAL STAGE RESULTS FROM THE START OF THE RALLY TO STAGE 8/REST DAY

DAKAR DAKAR DAKAR DAKAR DAKAR DAKAR         DAKAR  

xcx DAKAR DAKAR DAKAR DAKAR DAKAR DAKAR         DAKAR 

DAKAR DAKAR DAKAR DAKAR DAKAR DAKAR         DAKAR 

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We are LIVE ! ONLINE from SEA CAMP

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OFFICIAL LIVE! RALLY TRACKING

 

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We reported from SEA CAMP at CABO Safari Resort

Southern Baja Mexico...OFF-ROAD PARADISE!

Jose Luna, Southern BAJA Reporter 

 

 

 OFFICIAL RALLY SCHEDULE

Sponsored By: CABO Safari Resort, SEA CAMP

 

 

 

 

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LIVE ! ONLINE FROM SEA CAMP

DAKAR STAGE SCHEDULE

 

Saturday, Dec. 31, '22 8PM WEST

Stage 1 - SEA CAMP > SEA CAMP​ 1.01.2023

Stage 2 - SEA CAMP > ALULA​ 1.02.2023

Stage 3 - ALULA > HA'IL​ 1.03.2023

Stage 4 - HA'IL > HA'IL​ 1.04.2023 

Stage 5 - HA'IL > HA'IL​ 1.05.2023

Stage 6 - HA'IL > AL DUWADIMI​ 1.06.2023 Modified

Stage 7 - AL DUWADIMI > AL DUWADIMI​ 1.07.2023 Modified

Stage 8 - AL DUWADIMI > RIYADH​ 1.08.2023 Modified

Rest Day - Riyadh​ 1.09.2023

Stage 9 - RIYADH > HARADH​ 1.10.2023 

Stage 10 - HARADH > SHAYBAH​ 1.11.2023

Stage 11 - SHAYBAH>EMPTY QUARTER MARATHON​ 1.12.2023

Stage 12 - EMPTY QUARTER MARATHON > SHAYBAH​ 1.13.2023 

Stage 13 -SHAYBAH > AL-HOFUF​ 1.14.2023

Stage 14 - AL-HOFUF > DAMMAM​ 1.15.2023

AWARDS CEREMONY PODIUM

- Sunday, January 15 

 

 

Rally Reporting Daily, SEA CAMP Schedule Updates

Wednesday, December 28

ARRIVE SEA CAMP

12 NOON SERVICE PARK OPENING

Thursday, December 29 

8AM START TECH INSPECTION / ADMIN CHECKS

10PM CLOSE TECH INSPECTION / ADMIN CHECKS

 

Friday, December 30

7AM OPEN RALLY HeadQuarters 

OPEN 7/24 UNTIL January 15

8AM TO 14:30PM ADMIN CHECKS

9AM TO 15:30PM SCRUTINEERING 

18:00PM PRESS-CONFERENCE

20h00 DRIVERS-MEETING

Saturday, December 31

7AM TO 21:00PM OPEN RALLY HeadQuarters

8:30AM TEAM-MANAGER-BRIEFING

TBA PODIUM AND PROLOGUE

16h00 PROVISIONAL CLASSIFICATION PROLOGUE

20:00 PUBLICATION OF START LIST

 

 

 REFRESH OFTEN

 

TYPE OF ENTRIES/CARS AT DAKAR 2023

 

Toyota: 20, Century: 10, MD Optimus: 10, Nissan: 5, Mini: 4, ProDrive: 4, Audi: 3, Ford: 3, Sodicars: 3, Red Lined: 3, SMG: 2, Baic: 2, Isuzu: 1, Optimus/Chevrolet: 1. Graph Below:

 

 

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North America/Mexico Broadcast Info

This years rally broadcast starts on December 31, 2022 and runs until January 15, 2023 2023, SEE 'Dakar Rally' on Peacock's NBC Sports channel daily.

Nightly coverage of the 14-stage 2023 Dakar Rally — the world’s most challenging off-road endurance race — begins this Sunday, January 1, at 3:30 p.m. WEST on Peacock and continues through Sunday, January 15. Highlights of every show (all 14 stages and the rest day), exclusive racer interviews, and features from the 2023 Dakar Rally will be available on Peacock and NBC Sports digital platforms.

More than 550 competitors across seven classes will race across 5,000+ miles of varying terrain, including desert, canyons, dunes and mountains throughout Saudi Arabia. This will mark the fourth consecutive time that the country has hosted the race. The Dakar Rally is 43 years old, beginning in 1979. The inaugural race began in Paris, France, and finished in Dakar, Senegal.

American Ricky Brabec, who followed his historic Bike class victory in 2020 with a second-place finish in 2021, returns in this year’s field of competitors. Other top U.S. riders include Skyler Howes, who had back-to-back top-10 finishes in the Bike class in 2020 and 2021, and rookie sensation Mason Klein. In the T3 class, 20-year-old Seth Quintero, who set the record for stage wins in 2022, and 2022 T4 champion Austin Jones are also expected to compete for the Americans.

On the international side, two-time and defending champion Sam Sunderland (UK), two-time champion Toby Price (Australia), 2021 champion Kevin Benavides (Argentina), and 2018 champion Matthias Walkner (Austria) lead a competitive field.

CNBC will present three hour-long encore presentations throughout the event (Sat., Jan. 7 at 9 AM, Sun., Jan. 8 at 8 AM WEST, and Sun., Jan. 15 at 9 AM WEST) that will be streamed on NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app.

Following is the complete same-day coverage schedule of the 2023 Dakar Rally on Peacock and CNBC:

Date	Coverage	Platform	Time (WEST)
Sun., January 1	Stage 1 – Sea Camp	Peacock	3:30 p.m.
Mon., January 2	Stage 2 – Sea Camp to Alula	Peacock	3:30 p.m.
Tues., January 3	Stage 3 – Alula to Ha’il	Peacock	3:30 p.m.
Wed., January 4	Stage 4 – Ha’il	Peacock	3:30 p.m.
Thurs., January 5	Stage 5 – Ha’il	Peacock	3:30 p.m.
Fri., January 6	Stage 6 – Ha’il to Al Duwadimi	Peacock	3:30 p.m.
Sat., January 7	Stages 5 & 6	CNBC*	9  a.m.
Sat., January 7	Stage 7 – Al Duwadimi	Peacock	3:30 p.m.
Sun., January 8	Stages 6 & 7	CNBC*	8 a.m.
Sun., January 8	Stage 8 – Al Duwadimi to Riyadh	Peacock	3:30 p.m.
Mon., January 9	Rest Day	Peacock	3:30 p.m.
Tues., January 10	Stage 9 – Riyadh to Haradh	Peacock	3:30 p.m.
Wed., January 11	Stage 10 – Haradh to Shaybah	Peacock	3:30 p.m.
Thurs., January 12	Stage 11 – Shaybah to Empty Quarter	Peacock	3:30 p.m.
Fri., January 13	Stage 12 – Empty Quarter to Shaybah	Peacock	3:30 p.m.
Sat., January 14	Stage 13 – Shaybah to Al-Hofuf	Peacock	3:30 p.m.
Sun., January 15	Stages 12 & 13	CNBC*	9 a.m.
	***Sun., January 15	Stage 14 – Al-Hofuf to Dammam	Peacock	3:30 p.m.

FINISH AWARDS PODIUM LIVE STREAM TIME TBA***

*Encore presentation

Mexico coverage will go to FOX Sports and ESPN

 

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DISCOVER THE DESERT COURSE

 

 

REFRESH OFTEN

 

PRE-EVENT RACING HEADLINES>>>

 

*December 31

-Rule Changes

The 2023 rally will be the longest since 2014 with 14 stages + prologue.

All riders will now have digital roadbooks.

T1 & T2 Car competitors will have no neutralization sections in stages.

Cars & Trucks will start stages in overall finishing order, instead of the usual previous stage finishing order.

A new 'time bonus' system will be implemented to give time back to riders opening the stage.

A new 'mirror route' system will be implemented at random, this means some sections of the route will be different for some competitors.

-Bikes

Yamaha has withdrawn from rally raid, entirely. Last years riders are all competing again however, Xavier De Soultrait will compete in a T4 SSV, Andrew Short will co-drive for Molly Taylor and Adrien Van Beveren remains in the bike category with the Honda factory team. Ross Branch also remains in the bike category moving to the Hero factory team.

Joan Berreda Bort leaves the Honda factory team and will race with the semi-factory Monster Energy JB Team.

Last years best rookie and best finishing privateer Mason Klein moves to the RallyGP class but remains without a factory contract.

-Cars

Audi will race with a hugely upgraded car now called the Audi RS Q e-tron E2 however new rules for T1U vehicles mean they will gain 100kg of weight.

Nani Roma will not race this year and he continues his cancer recovery.

M-Sport's Ford Raptor program will not compete in 2023 despite initial plans.

X-Raid Mini will enter two new T1+ regulation cars with Pryzgonski and Halpern.

 

*

-Baja Safari sponsored, Swiss born racer Chicherit has returned to Dakar!

Chicherit and Zala are the first privateers to race with the ProDrive BRX Hunter. Baja Safari's Chicherit has already won Rallye du Maroc with the Hunter so he will be one to watch. 

*

Martin Prokop has also radically changed his T1+ Raptor which lacked speed last year.

Century Racing will enter two slightly upgraded buggys with a new V6 engine as part of their transition into the T1+ class next year.

Rebellion Racing have moved to Toyota after difficulty with their privately built car in previous years.

Akira Miura enters the T2 class with a new Toyota.

-SSV

Red Bull has partnered with Can Am South Racing to combine the top teams and drivers into a new powerhouse team. Quintero, Jones, Gutierrez & Lopez will race in the T3 category while Rokas Baciuska will race in the T4 category.

X-Raid & Yamaha have joined forces to create a new SSV team with Ignacio Calase as lead driver, moving from Trucks to SSV for the first time.

The young Pole Eryk Goczal is finally old enough to race in Dakar alongside father & uncle Marek & Michal.

Another young rookie Pau Navarro joins the field after winning in Andalucia and finishing 2nd at Maroc.

Xavier De Soultrait moves from Bikes to SSV with the new Sebastien Loeb Racing team.

-Trucks

Kamaz is BANNED and will not compete in 2023. While MAZ remain absent due to sanctions, however this means that the truck category will be extremely interesting with it no longer being a mere spending war.

Team De Rooy & Mammoet tighten their partnership while new title sponsorship replaces the iconic Petronas livery.

Martin Macik will race with a new Iveco.

The KH7 Epsilon team have implemented hydrogen power into their truck for the first time!

 

*Filthy russians condemned for life by Baja Racing News of Ensenada, Baja Mexico!

 

While filthy russia invading Ukraine has drawn international condemnation, sergei kariakin and various russian racers have refused to speak out against it such as fellow SSV driver anastasiya nifontova. KAMAZ-master, a nineteen-time winner of the Dakar’s Truck category, is BANNED from the 2023 Rally; the team’s parent company is directly involved in the war by providing vehicles to the filthy russian military.

 

*Filthy russians 'splained: 

An 'expert' sez:

"The FIA has a document that Russian and Belarusian racers must sign basically saying they condemn the invasion, stand with Ukraine, and agree that they can't have their country's emblems on their gear. There are a handful of drivers at Dakar that signed it like Denis Krotov (now using a Kyrgyzstan license) and his co-driver Konstantin Zhiltsov (Israel), but others have mostly refused to do so. Doesn't help that drivers still living in Russia could face jail time for "discrediting the army" if they sign it, so those who have are usually already living elsewhere.  The FIM has a hard ban on all Russian/Belarusian riders even if they oppose the war (Dmitriy Mazanov, a Belarusian, got kicked out of the Baja Portalgre 500 in October despite being part-Ukrainian and having used a UKR license in the past).  KAMAZ not signing the terms is wholly unsurprising considering their parent company is partly owned by the state and supplying vehicles for the Russian military. MAZ-SPORTauto's been out since last year because of sanctions on Belarus predating the invasion."

 

*Filthy russians barred from fia/dakar

 

"It’s no secret that filthy russian competitors in international championships have staggeringly decreased in number following their country’s invasion of Ukraine in February due to the FIA’s “emergency measures” stipulating they must condemn the war and agree to race without their nation’s emblems. While many refuse to sign the terms, a trio of Russians did and thus confirmed their entries in the 2023 Dakar Rally, though they will have different nationalities.  In the T1 class, Denis Krotov will race the #238 Mini Cooper for X-raid Team alongside co-driver Konstantin Zhiltosv. The latter confirmed the two’s Dakar entry in September, with Zhiltsov switching to an Israeli licence while Krotov will represent Kyrgyzstan.  A Moscow native, Krotov has raced at Dakar since 2019, finishing fifteenth in his début and twenty-eighth with Zhiltsov in 2022. After the invasion, the duo remained in Russia to take part in the russian Rally-Raid Championship, winning the T1 category at the premier Silk Way Rally in July. Krotov was second in the standings to Vladimir Vasilyev prior to this weekend’s Serif Line race in Ulyanovsk, but opted for the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Bajas’ season finale and competed in the Dubai International Baja.  “It is necessary to race, otherwise you lose your skills, and then you need to stop all this altogether,” Zhiltsov told Match TV in September after his switch. “A career in professional sports is rather fleeting, so some cardinal decisions must be made.”  Meanwhile, Alexey Kuzmich will be the navigator for Yasir Seaidan‘s #410 in the T4 category at Dakar. Like his fellow russians, Kuzmich was in Dubai as co-driver to Middle East Bajas Cup runner-up Hamad Al-Harbi. Unlike Krotov and Zhiltsov, however, he elected to race with no stated nationality and used the FIA emblem.  Kuzmich first competed at Dakar in 2009 and won a stage three years later in a Truck driven by Artur Ardavichus. He and Seaidan ran as high as fourth in the 2022 edition before crashing out.  The topic has torn russian racers, with opponents of the FIA rule like 2017 Dakar Quad winner sergei kariakin unable to take part in overseas FIA races; he even lobbied personally and fruitlessly to FIA President Mohammed ben Sulayem to overturn it."

 

KAMAZ-master, nineteen-time Dakar Truck champion, also called off their 2023 Rally plans. 

 

"Conversely, Formula One test driver Robert Shwartzman now uses an Israeli licence while Alexander Smolyar raced for the 2022 Formula 3 Championship under the FIA flag.  The FIM does not have this rule but is more restrictive than its four-wheel counterpart with a full ban on riders from russia and ally belarus. Consequently, no russian riders are entered at Dakar.  Despite the switch, all of those mentioned remain russian citizens and carry such passports.  filthy russians were already racing without their tricolour prior to the invasion as the state-run doping scandal forced them to compete as the russian automobile federation. The raf’s name is among those prohibited in the FIA’s post-invasion policy."

 

*Opinion by Zeeshan Aleem, converted to Dakar 2023 by Gary Newsome, Publisher 

 

"Saudi Arabia made a big splash four years ago in the  Rally-Raid world with something unrelated to oil, war or the shocking dismemberment of a dissident: It kicked off a relationship with the French ASO. 

 

The Saudi sovereign wealth fund-backed the Dakar event and took aim at the sport’s premier event  organizer, the FIA of France, by seducing off-road racers from around the world, including the russian federation, China and other malcontents on the global sports stage.

 

But the conversation around the Dakar event didn’t stop with questions about the propriety of using a firehose of cash to upend norms in a sport. It also prompted questions of whether Saudi Arabia was playing a game of its own by using  a cultural spectacle to boost its beleaguered international reputation. A recent New York Times report based on confidential records all but proves that that was Saudi Arabia’s intent.  Saudi Arabia is attempting to use sports to become richer and grow more influential around the world.  According to the report, outside consultants to Saudi Arabia’s government effectively admitted that the Dakar relationship made little financial sense. With a limited and shrinking market, the $5 billion off-road investment could easily cost Saudi Arabia lots of money, and any profits it would make are meager compared to the amount of money the fund backing it has or could hope to make by investing elsewhere. Perhaps most tellingly, according to The New York Times’ assessment of the documents, consultants with McKinsey & Company were not even “examining whether it was a strategically viable idea.” Implicitly it seems that the purpose of the consultation was about the optics of it. Given the inattention to the plausibility of the business model, it should not surprise us that the financial outlook for the Dakar event doesn’t look promising, according to the obtained documents. Despite the vast amount of money the house of saud has spent wooing talent and organizing events, it hasn’t yet attracted any major broadcasting or sponsorship deals.  So if the Dakar event doesn’t make financial sense as an investment to the house of saud, then why would Saudi Arabia pursue it? 

 

To curate its reputation. It’s common to characterize this kind of effort as “sportswashing”, that is, an authoritarian government’s bid to use sports to divert attention from its human rights abuses. But it’s bigger and more complicated than that. Saudi Arabia is attempting to use sports to become richer and grow more influential around the world. The Times frames the ASO investment as a way for Saudi Arabia to revive its reputation in the wake of the high-profile murder of dissident Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. While the world’s outrage at Saudi Arabia could plausibly have figured into the timing of the investment, there’s a broader context here that a focus on Khashoggi might cause people to miss. 

 

Even before Saudi Arabia brought negative attention upon itself, collaborating with the filthy animal russia federation criminal putin along with Khashoggi’s murder, ​​the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) had already announced a sweeping plan for reorienting and diversifying his country’s economy away from its reliance on pumping and selling oil. 

 

In a bid to prepare for life after oil, MBS had begun investing in, among other things, the tech, entertainment and tourist sectors. Putting money into sports was a part of that strategy, and in recent years Saudi Arabia has already hosted or won bids to host scores of major sports events, including tennis, soccer and boxing.    If a country like Saudi Arabia is able to become affiliated with prestigious sports and host major events, then that creates opportunities for international exposure and tourism. Over the longer term, the country might hope that its evolving brand helps attract foreign investment. (In reality, experts who focus on how countries use sports as an investment strategy say it’s hard to measure the returns on it.)  Moving aggressively into sports seems to be a regional phenomenon. Danyel Reiche, a visiting associate professor at Georgetown University in Qatar, told me he suspects Saudi Arabia may have been influenced by its neighbor to the east. Qatar has been hosting prominent international sporting events since at least 1993, when it hosted an ATP-level tennis tournament. Right now, of course, it just finished hosting the FIFA World Cup. While the World Cup has brought a lot of negative attention to Qatar’s horrendous human rights record, it’s also helped the country become a known player after being mostly invisible to much of the international public. What Saudi Arabia is doing is about more than just the economic picture, though. As experts such as Reiche and the sports researcher Stanis Elsborg have pointed out, Saudi Arabia, like many countries around the world, sees sports as an opportunity to wield “soft power.” International relations analysts sometimes distinguish between a country’s “hard power,” in the form of its military strength and its wealth, and its “soft power,” which is a broad umbrella for describing its “power of attraction.” Think about a country's cultural influence through movies, music and art, as well as its diplomatic power — the capacity to persuade and form alliances with other countries. Sports are part of that broader cache of cultural activities through which a country can project a more pleasant image of itself around the world, which doesn’t just help the economy but can also make it more influential in determining what the world looks like. This is not something that just authoritarian countries do; it’s something democratic countries do all the time, through events like hosting the Olympics and using their opening ceremonies to tell a compelling story about themselves.   Sports can create critical diplomatic opportunities for countries to burnish their image. Consider that during this World Cup the U.S. sent its top diplomat, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, to Qatar. He praised Qatar’s “progress” on labor rights after years of reports surrounding Qatar’s brutal treatment of its foreign-born World Cup construction workers. The end result for Qatar was that it looked like a bigger player on the world stage, and the tournament created an opportunity for the U.S. and Qatar to grow its relationship. 

 

Is Saudi Arabia hoping to launder its image and cleanse itself of its various sins through throwing money at sports? I’d say so. But it’s not only doing that. Sports are part of a broader strategy of the country trying to become a richer and more powerful player on the global stage, which is what most countries want.   Ultimately the bigger issue isn’t the use of sports as a political tool. That’s nearly universal. Our objection should be to the substantive things that Saudi Arabia is doing wrong — its treatment of women, of its guest workers, of Yemen, of dissidents. None of Saudi Arabia's cultural diplomacy changes the importance of those issues or lessens the need to criticize them."

 

*house of saud cultural crisis reported:

 

-Soccer wedges into the realm 

 

-Race sparks debate and cultural confrontations

house of saud Jeddah rocket attack exposes glaring problems

 

*The house of saud has serious issues. ASO will find it very easy to NOT re-sign with the house of saud

 

 The organizers of F1 have already decided NOT to resign any contracts with the house of saud. The above video is the results of the rocket attack at Jeddah.

 

FYI, that's also the reason the ASO will NEVER visit Jeddah again, after last years BOMBING and this years ROCKET ATTACK during this years international F1 racing events.

 

As the US NAVY told the arabian gulf states recently, "WE AREN'T GOING ANYWHERE!" 

   

*THE LONG STANDING COLLABORATION WITH THE WEST IS COLLAPSING...CHINESE F1 CANCELLED!

December 1, 2022: "Formula 1 can confirm, following dialogue with the promoter and relevant authorities, that the 2023 Chinese Grand Prix will not take place due to the ongoing difficulties presented by the COVID-19 situation.  Formula 1 is assessing alternative options to replace the slot on the 2023 calendar and will provide an update on this in due course." 

 

 

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Coverage Posting began December 1, 2022

Gary Newsome, Publisher

Ensenada, BC, Mexico

BajaRacingNews.com

 

 

 

Edited by: Gary Newsome

Ensenada, BC Mexico

BajaRacingNews.com