A less than 50 days after the start of the operation, the Dakar 2024 opens the curtain with the official presentation of all the details of the 46 edition. Nasser Al-Attiyah (cars), Kevin Benavides (motorcycles), Austin Jones (T3), Eric Goczal (T4), Alexandre Giroud (quadriceps) y Janus Van Kasteren (trucks) will once again defend their crown in the territory of Saudi Arabia.
The route of Dakar 2024 traverse 7,881 kilometersof which 4,727 (60% of the total) will be time trials. They will be distributed in competition boxwith an initial prologue of 157 km (27 timed) and 13 stages (or 12, if we count the sixth as the only one, which will be divided into two days).
This is the layout of the Dakar 2023 route, again in Saudi Arabia.
A semi-marathon and a 48-hour stage
Los two hot moments of Dakar 2024, at least in theory, will be the steps 3 and 4 (8 and 9 January), between which the pilots will have a reduced assistance, every few hours before leaving the cars in the parc fermé and, above all, the expected double day -which ASO named as stages 6A and 6B– (January 11th and 12th, just before the day of rest).
Start one 48 hour internshipin which pilots will have to travel 584 kilometers against the clock…divided into two days. The first half will end at 4pm. and participants must stop at the camp closest to their position (there will be eight distributed along the route), where They will sleep in a tent Yes They will have to resolve any mechanical issues themselvesas your race assistance trucks will likely not have arrived at the same campsite.
“This format adds a bit of salt and pepper for the race. Be one of the stellar stages“, he thinks Carlos Sainzwho will do his third Dakar with Audi in search of the first triumph of a hybrid car. Al-Attiyahthe current champion, knows that the race can be run that day: “You will have to study the strategy well of this stage, we will certainly have to work together with the other cars in the team”, guarantees the brand new hire Penetrate.
The 13 stages of the 2023 Dakar (plus prologue), summarized in this mileage table.
The Empty Neighborhood, in the “heart of the race”
If this after entering the format If it were little complication, on this day motorcyclists and quadricycles on one side and car and truck drivers on the other will have different routes, so that the latter must navigate without the traces of the former, as happens in the other stages. And besides, all this in the empty neighborhoodthe most inhospitable desert on the planet, which this year is scheduled “in the heart of the race”, right on the equator From the test.
David Casterarace director, also announces a complicated startIN dunes than ever in the history of the Dakar (they will be protagonists especially in the first week) and a final surprise for the penultimate stageone of the longest and most complicated routes due to the rocky terrain it passes through.
Almost 600 drivers and co-drivers will compete in the 2024 Dakar, in addition to those participating in the Dakar Classic.
778 participants, with 119 Spanish
Although these are provisional numbers – we will only know the final value on the day of the Prologue -, the organization announced that there will be 778 participants (590 in the four categories of the Dakar, plus those who will compete in the Classic Dakar is the new Mission 1000 experimental vehicles). From them, 119 will be from Spainthe second country with the most representatives, after France (19 in motorcycles, 1 in quadricycles, 10 in cars, 33 in T3-T4 and 18 in trucks, plus those registered in the Classic).
Sern 137 motorcycles, 72 cars, 18 quartets, 46 trucks, 42 lightweight prototypes Yes 36 SSV (always provisionally). They will be represented more than 70 nationalities and there will be three exclusively female crews, with 46 women in the race.
