Opinion

Why the jury is still out on the Dakar's route shake-up risk

OPINION: There has been no shortage of drama in the opening days of the 2025 Dakar Rally, much of which can be traced to decisions to introduce a front-heavy route for this year's event. But whether this will improve the spectacle for the entire event remains to be seen

Anyone who assumed the Dakar Rally had become too easy since leaving its spiritual home in Africa was taken aback by the first few days of the 2025 event in Saudi Arabia. The strategic decision to place the 48-hour stage near the very beginning caused havoc, taking out several heavyweights including four-time champion Carlos Sainz Sr (Ford) and WRC legend Sebastien Loeb (Dacia) - who exited in the next stage after the Chrono.

Dakar has always been ruthless to its competitors but the start of its 47th edition has been particularly brutal. Most of the drivers this year had already experienced a two-day, 48-hour stage on its debut in 2024, but organiser ASO had raised the stakes this time around.

Firstly, the competitive distance was almost doubled from 549km to nearly a thousand kilometres, meaning it was worth more than the last four stages combined. Then, the route for bikes and cars was split, leaving drivers to navigate on their own without the help of any tracks laid out by their two-wheel counterparts. And finally, many drivers had sacrificed the opening stage in order to gain a more favourable road position, obliging them to push even harder to make up the lost ground.

All those factors combined to create mayhem, whittling the field down and leaving several pre-race favourites out of the running, With stages four and five also run to a marathon format, the entire opening week of Dakar could be full of attrition. If it wasn’t for a WRC-style rule introduced in 2022 that allowed drivers retiring from a stage to rejoin the rally the following day, even more contenders would have been forced out by now.

ASO can consider itself fortunate that a resurgent Mini is in the hunt for victory for the first time since losing Sainz and Stephane Peterhansel at the end of 2021. The switch from diesel engine to petrol power has transformed the fortunes of the factory X-raid team, bringing another contender into the mix at a time when newcomers Dacia and Ford are still learning the ropes in cross-country rallying.

The top 10 drivers, representing five manufacturers Toyota, Dacia, Ford, Century and Mini, are still separated by roughly 30 minutes of each other, meaning the fight remains wide open heading to Alula on Wednesday. If the story remains largely the same come the rest day in Riyadh, it will keep viewers glued to the screens during the second half of the event.

Loeb and Sainz have both fallen victim to incidents early on in a dramatic Dakar

Photo by: A.S.O.

This would be a welcome change for Dakar after the last few years, where the winner was more or less decided in the first week. In 2023, for instance, then-Toyota driver Nasser Al-Attiyah had already pulled out a gap of an hour by Stage 6 of 14, and was effectively driving in cruise control thereafter.

That wasn’t a good look for Dakar by any means, even as Loeb provided some fireworks with his blistering speed in the Prodrive Hunter. Even in 2024, victory was a foregone conclusion for Sainz and Audi long before drivers set off for the final stage in Yanbu.

Considering the events of recent years, Dakar had taken a big risk by creating a front-heavy route for 2025, with all the longer stages scheduled in the first week. In fact, two of the last three stages are less than 150km in length, with the final dash to Shubayth just 67km long. The last day of the rally is usually nothing more than a formality for the drivers, but this time even Stage 10 runs for just 120km.

Mattias Ekstrom said he would have preferred if ASO had planned a route that started off easy in week one before getting tougher with every passing stage in the second half of the rally

To potentially throw a spanner in the works, drivers will have to go through the unforgiving Empty Quarters at the end of rally, with plenty of dunes to tackle through the desert. However, that could actually prove counterproductive, should a driver have a big lead by the last major stage, the ninth test between Riyadh and Haradh. With difficult terrain, and little time to gain given the short distance involved, there will be no incentive to push when the risk of crashing is high.

Equally, if the fight is close at the front, some drivers will be inclined to turn up the wick and go for even marginal gains, keeping the excitement up until the last minute.

The jury, hence, is out whether this year’s unconventional route will deliver an exciting rally throughout. As Ford’s Mattias Ekstrom said, he would have preferred if ASO had planned a route that started off easy in week one before getting tougher with every passing stage in the second half of the rally. While it’s too early to say how the rest of Dakar 2025 will pan out, the event has managed to keep everyone on their feet so far.