Dune and dusted as Dakar Rally tests limits of endurance

SEA CAMP, Saudi Arabia – When it involves endurance races in motor sport, nothing can fairly compete with the annual Dakar Rally which begins its forty fifth version on the shores of the Red Sea on Saturday.

This yr’s occasion stretches 8,549 km over 15 days of racing, together with a four-day tour into the as but unexplored desert dunes of the huge Rub’ al-Khali, or Empty Quarter.

“‘Be Afraid’ seems to be the message of the route for the 2023 Dakar,” stated organisers after they revealed the course at first of December.

The warning doesn’t seem to have put anybody off: greater than 800 riders, drivers and co-drivers will set off in an array of bikes, automobiles, quads, vans and mild autos when the race begins on Saturday.

Among them some well-known names, together with nine-time World Rally champion Sebastien Loeb (BRX) who’s relishing the prospect of competing in his sixth Dakar.

“It’s 14 stages, it’s very long, a proper endurance rally,” he stated. “We need to find the right pace to get to the finish with as few mistakes as possible.”

The Frenchman, who has simply gained the 2022 version of the Extreme E, has a troublesome battle in entrance of him if he’s to enhance on his three podium finishes and chalk up that first win.

Notably, he might want to unseat defending champion Nasser Al-Attiyah (Toyota), a quadruple winner of the occasion, however he will even be up in opposition to one other WRC legend Carlos Sainz (Mini) as nicely as the Dakar nice Stephane Peterhansel (Audi) who has gained the occasion 14 instances – eight in a automobile and six on a motorcycle.

On the bike facet, defending champion Sam Sunderland (GasGas) will face a stiff problem from the likes of Daniel Sanders (GasGas), Pablo Quintanilla (Honda), Matthias Walkner (KTM) and Adrien Van Beveren (Honda).

CONCERNS

This yr’s race takes place in opposition to a backdrop of issues linked to Saudi Arabia’s human rights report and navy intervention in neighbouring Yemen.

That ongoing conflict has left a whole bunch of 1000’s lifeless and thousands and thousands displaced, with a big half of the Yemeni inhabitants near famine, based on the United Nations.

Last yr, preparations had been rocked by an explosion two days earlier than the beginning of the race which left French driver Philippe Boutron severely injured.

An “accident” based on Riyadh, though French investigators concluded in February that the explosion had been brought on by an improvised explosive system.

Amaury Sport Organization, which runs the occasion, says it has elevated safety across the bivouacs the place the two,700 folks of the Dakar caravan shall be accommodated.

The rally, of course, isn’t any stranger to safety points.

The first race in 1978 set off from the Trocadero in Paris and ended within the Senegal capital however after 29 years in Africa, the threats grew to become too nice.

That meant transferring the race to South American for 11 years earlier than switching it to Saudi Arabia in 2020.

Since then it has come beneath the highlight of NGOs criticising the “sportwashing policy” of the Arab world’s largest financial system.

“Sports fans should not indiscriminately believe the image fabricated and presented by the Saudi government through these events,” stated Joey Shea, Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch.

The NGO documented “widespread human rights violations in the kingdom, including arbitrary arrests of peaceful dissidents and human rights activists, some of whom were sentenced to decades-long prison terms simply for posting on the social media,” she stated.

A bunch of different sports activities have, just like the Dakar, shelved any such issues, with high-profile soccer, biking, Formula E, Formula One and boxing occasions all having been staged within the nation.

The rally ends on 15 January on the dominion’s japanese sea border.