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Dakar 2024 Preview: Rally Route, Stages & Contenders
The world's toughest rally, the Dakar is back. Tomorrow afternoon, riders will depart the city of AlUla, into the desert before returning as they look to determine the first 10 riders and drivers that will start Stage 1 on Saturday.
Contestants of Dakar 2024 will cover 7,860 kilometres over 14 days of racing which includes tomorrow's Prologue & 12 stages of racing. These 13 rounds of Dakar 2024 will see contestants race across 4,715 kilometres of timed special stages.
This year will see contestants rip through dunes, river beds and rocky terrain with one rest day on the 13th of January in the capital city of Riyadh. However, before that rest day will be a brand new stage style, which will see contestants return to an old-school style of rally raid.
Stage 6 will be a 48-hour Chrono stage that will see riders and drivers head into the infamous Empty Quarter for a 2-day marathon stage. Competitors will be allowed to help each other but there will be no choice of canteen or repair companions, as the drivers and crews will be spread out over eight different bivouacs.
Contestants will set off at their designated times but when the clock strikes 4 p.m. they will be required to stop at the closest bivouac. The next day all contestants will head out at 7 in the morning to complete the remaining part of the stage which includes 572 kilometres of timed special stages.
Let's take a look at the contestants in the cars and bikes (where we find two Indian riders) that will be blasting through the dunes at Dakar 2024. The cars section will see four major players - Toyota, Prodrive, Audi and newcomers, Ford.
Two-time defending (five-time overall) Nasser Al-Attiyah has ditched Toyota for the Prodrive team in the Hunter T1+, the same vehicle that has been driven by his biggest rival Dakar rival, 9-time WRC champion Sebastien Loeb. The Frenchman will be racing for the last time with the Prodrive run Bahrain Raid Xtreme before he and Al-Attiyah join forces at Dacia.
Toyota, which dropped most of its team from last year include the one who took them to victory in the last two years - Al-Attiyah. The only one still in a Hilux seat from last year will be the 2009 winner, Giniel de Villiers. Villiers who is joined by 2023's third-place finisher Lucas Moraes.
Three other drivers will be contesting Dakar 2024 in the updated Toyota Hilux Dakar rally car including South Africa's Saood Variawa who will be one of the youngest ever drivers to contest the Dakar rally at only 18 years of age.
Audi, for the third year in a row, will be sending three of its hybrid RS Q e-tron into the Saudi dunes in the hands of Stephane Peterhansel, Carlos Sainz Sr and Mattias Ekstrom. The Audi team will be hoping for a more competitive and reliable Dakar this year after last year saw Sainz and Peterhansel retire.
Ford are the newcomers this year and will be drifting across the dunes in Ford Ranger T1+ pickup trucks. The two Fords will be driven by 2014 winner Nani Roma and South Africa's Gareth Woolridge. Ford is expected to use this year's race to scope it out before returning next year with its potent WRC partner M-Sport.
The two-wheeler section will not see last year's winner Kevin Benavides sport the No. 1 on his bike. Instead, it will be his brother Luciano Benavides, riding for KTM's subsidiary Husqvarna who will have that number after winning the World Rally Raid Championship (W2RC) last year.
Kevin Benavides will have to stave off his teammate Toby Price, who he snatched overall victory from last year. Other contenders will include the likes of GasGas riders Sam Sunderland (a two-time winner) and Daniel Sanders.
Honda will be riding into Dakar with 6 factory riders. These include the usual suspects like Ricky Brabec, Adrien Van Beveren, Pablo Quintanilla, and Nacho Cornejo being joined by American Skyler Howes and Spain's Tosha Schareina.
India's Hero Motocorp will be looking for more stage victories this year and has returned with the same trio of riders from last year - Joaquim Rodrigues, Sebastian Buhler, and Ross Branch and has also added Dakar specialist Joan Barreda Bort to its lineup.
The Sherco TVS sees India's only factory rider at Dakar 2024 Harith Noah once again taking to the Saudi sands after crashing out last year. He will be joined by Sherco's main man Lorenzo Santolino and Rui Goncalves.
The other Indian rider at Dakar 2024 will be Ashish Raorane. The privateer who will be participating in his second Dakar since 2021 will be astride a KTM 450 replica and will be backed by the Xraids Experience team.
Thoughts About The Dakar 2024
The Dakar 2024 will see hundreds of contestants in cars, bikes, quads, trucks and more head into the Saudi sands as they look to conquer the world's toughest rally. We wish them all the best and can't wait for how the rally unfolds this year.
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