Thursday brought a new wrinkle to the Dakar Rally as the first of a two-day “48th Chrono” that throws some unprecedented challenges at the competitors. The first part of a two-day stage through Saudia Arabia’s Empty Quarter covered 549km/341miles but, rather than the usual bivouac, the competition was halted at 4pm, with the racers then having to stop at the next of the six rest areas that punctuated the course of the special. There, they were given bare-bones camping material and just enough provisions to make it through the night in the desert alongside their vehicles, without any connection to the media or any information on how their rivals are doing.
The first half of the 48th Chrono was a good one for Audi Sport, particularly for Carlos Sainz Sr. (pictured above) and Mattias Ekström. After 398km/247 miles, which provided the most comprehensive rankings before the 4pm cutoff, the Spaniard led his Swedish Audi RS Q e-tron teammate by 4m30s, and in the process regained the lead of the Ultimate car category, with Ekström now second overall.
The Audi runners benefited from a disaster early in the stage for Overdrive Toyota’s Yazeed Al-Rajhi, who retired after a crash that extensively damaged his Hilux.
“We were at full speed when I hit something — the car did a barrel roll,” related the Saudi driver, whose hopes of an overall victory are now over.
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Stéphane Peterhansel also lost considerable time on the stage after halting with a mechanical problem on his Audi. Prodrive Hunter drivers Nasser Al-Attiyah and Sebastien Loeb are now third and fourth overall, with Lucas Moraes (Toyota Gazoo Racing) in fifth.
France’s Adrien Van Beveren led the motorcycle contingent with a lead of 1m21s over his Monster Energy Honda teammate, American Ricky Brabec, and 1m49s over Australian Toby Price (Red Bull KTM). As a result, American rider Brabec moved ahead of Ross Branch (Hero Motorsports) at the top of the general rankings. The Botswanan is now in second place, 2m48s behind Brabec after a sixth-place run today, while Nacho Cornejo (Monster Energy Honda) is third overall.
Never before have the title contenders in the motorbike category spent eight hours in a special. The Empty Quarter, with dunes as far as the eye can see, will set the scene for this historic first. The race is no stranger to this area, but the difficulty of this larger-than-life special has been kicked up a notch. Chotts will give the competitors some time to breathe between one dune chain and the next. However, the navigation will be fiendishly difficult, with hard-to-find courses and hidden WPs that will challenge the navigation skills to the maximum. And since the car and motorcycle entrants will follow separate courses, co-drivers will have to do without the motorbikes’ traces.