The Dakar launches its 45th edition in the dunes of Saudi Arabia
The rally-raid celebrates its 45th anniversary from Saturday in Saudi Arabia, with innovative or retro cars and in the background the security risk and the decried policy of Riyadh.
Jakub Przygonski and his Mini in the sand.
AFP
On December 26, 1978, Thierry Sabine gave the first departure from the Trocadéro in Paris for 182 vehicles, heading for the Senegalese capital. This Saturday, the most famous rally-raid on the calendar starts from the shores of the Red Sea and its azure waters, in Saudi Arabia. After 29 years in Africa, then 11 years in South America to escape terrorist threats, here is the former “Paris-Dakar” on a third continent since 2020.
A sign that despite the patina of time, the Dakar continues to make people dream, 170 participants should compete for the first time, alongside around a hundred experienced drivers and co-drivers with at least ten Dakars on the clock. Fifteen days and 8549 km of competition to cross the Saudi setting from west to east, more than 800 pilots and co-pilots engaged in motorcycles, cars, quads and trucks.
“The Dakar Saudi Arabia 2023”, as Prince Khalid bin Sultan Al-Faisal, president of the Saudi Motor Sport Federation, calls it “the most important and demanding competition in the world” in this discipline. This event “reflects our ambitions and is part of the transformation of the kingdom’s journey”, he adds. But she also continues to cringe.
shadows on the board
NGOs criticize the “sportwashing policy” of the Arab world’s largest economy – using Formula 1, football or boxing competitions to make people forget their human rights violations. “Sports fans should not indiscriminately believe the image fabricated and presented by the Saudi government through these events,” said Joey Shea, Saudi Arabia researcher for Human Rights Watch (HRW).
The NGO documented “widespread human rights abuses 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 says.
Another downside: the explosion two days before the start of the 2022 edition of the car of French driver Philippe Boutron, seriously injured. An “accident” according to Riyadh, an improvised explosive device, according to French investigators. Security has in fact been reinforced, assures the organizer Amaury Sport Organization (ASO). Checkpoints, demining units and police patrols around the camp attest to this.
“Extraordinary Feelings”
The race, the first round of the world rally-raid championship, includes long specials of more than 400 km in the first week and will enter the second in “the heart of the Dakar”: an unprecedented dive into the ocean of dunes of the Empty Quarter, one of the largest deserts in the world. The winners will be chosen at the end of the 14th stage, on January 15, drawn along the sea not unlike Lac Rose, near Dakar, in Senegal, a “wink to history”, according to David Castera, race director.
“The Dakar as a whole is going to be difficult”, predicts Frenchman Sébastien Loeb (Prodrive) with “long specials in the dunes”, “extraordinary sensations with the cars we have today”, but which require “d ‘to be hyper-focused’. For the nine-time world rally champion, the objective is to dethrone the Qatari Nasser Al-Attiyah (Toyota), four-time winner of the event, and for that it will also be necessary to resist the Spaniard Carlos Sainz (Mini) – father F1 driver Carlos Sainz Jr – or the other tricolor tenor, Stéphane Peterhansel (Audi).
On the motorcycle side, the Briton Sam Sunderland (GasGas) will defend his crown, challenged by other top names in the discipline such as the Australian Daniel Sanders (GasGas), the Chilean Pablo Quintanilla (Honda), the Austrian Matthias Walkner (KTM ) or the Frenchman Adrien Van Beveren (Honda).
AFP
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