2023-06-04 07:11:00
Why present the route within this Dakar Tour at Château Lastours (Aude)?
There are three reasons. The aim of the event is to recreate a “Dakar moment” outside of the race. This allows teams to trade. Some do their shopping and negotiate assists. The Kove team has its motorcycles tried out, for example. It is a platform, a Dakar show to allow competitors to make themselves known, to canvass customers or assistance teams. We welcome professional teams but the Dakar Tour is above all aimed at amateurs, who wish to take the plunge. They need to understand everything regarding the event in order to finalize their commitment. Several workshops are available. About thirty people took courses on the Dakar Classic. Édouard Boulanger (Stéphane Peterhansel’s navigator at Audi Sport. Editor’s note) also gave a navigation lesson to a group of co-drivers, and Xavier de Soultrait (Sébastien Loeb Racing driver in T3. Editor’s note) did the same with the bikers. The idea is to explain the preparation for navigation, show the tools in the race (tablet), but also to discover all the necessary physical preparation. For many, the Dakar is the investment of a lifetime, and it’s always useful to give the keys to be ready. The “students” are very attentive.
???? Still wonderful places for 2024!
Discover the route ⤵️#Dakar2024 #DakarInSaudi pic.twitter.com/W2Nia3tXTV— DAKAR RALLY (@dakar) June 3, 2023
I wanted to rediscover this human contact. We have between 300 and 400 people on this Dakar Tour, and I wanted to shift the presentation of the Dakar to coincide with this meeting. It’s always better to speak in front of an audience than alone in front of a camera.
Finally, the French and Spanish population, geographically very close to this Dakar Tour, should be taken into account because they are the two most represented nationalities on the Dakar. It’s more human and the event resembles me more than a conference on the Internet.
Why did you postpone the start by five days compared to 2023, with a prologue on January 5?
We didn’t want to touch Christmas; recently, our teams had to leave their homes on December 23rd. It was starting to be tight in terms of the schedule because the departure was progressing day by day, year following year. So for 2024, we decided to take the plunge to push back to January 5, as we had already done in 2020 (first edition in Saudi Arabia) as well as in Argentina when the jet lag was increasing from year to year. There will be 12 stages as well as a prologue over 14 days of racing (including 1 rest). The start will take place in AlUla, with the same principle of Camp used last winter on the shores of the Red Sea. The final finish will be in Yanbu, surely on the site of the 2023 prologue, with a podium by the sea.
What’s new on the course?
I wanted to resume the backbone of last winter. It took us a while to reach the right balance on difficulty, but I think we got there. The 2023 Dakar was a challenge, harder than the previous year, but the competitors were looking for just that. The level of difficulty will be the same, with a mix of rough sections, navigation, sand and dunes. In the event of a high-speed plateau area, we looked to break up the long full-load streak with slower parallel tracks. If we were wrong regarding the hardness of the race, it will most certainly be with a little more difficulty rather than a little more ease! We have preserved the high mileage of the stages.
How did you build the course?
We found three entirely new areas. The first stage will be incredible, very beautiful, with ancient volcanoes and landscapes never seen before, and it will be difficult… maybe even a little too much, but it will make a big introduction. The second stage of 2023, which had done so much damage (3 punctures for Loeb and 1h20 lost on Al-Attiyah, who will be the final winner. Editor’s note), I reworked it. But I kept the same level of difficulty because in 2024 it will serve as the penultimate stage. I wished that something might still happen on the eve of the finish. At the start of the race, as in 2023, this special had broken the momentum of the event. Next year, by placing it at the end of the competition, it will allow me to have a more intense finish.
Then, I especially wanted to place the dunes in the middle of the course, and not at the end of the second week like in 2023. This had “smoothed out” the Dakar. By placing it in the middle of this great round trip, we will do 4 days of pure sport, with navigation in the dunes, then another 4 days in the other direction following the rest day. In this way, the race should not remain frozen, everything will be possible.
Can you specify the new stage concept “48 hours chrono”?
I like original ideas. This one does not come from me, but from one of my predecessors, Fenouil (former biker whose real name is Jean-Claude Morellet, organizer of the Dakar in 1994). It’s Cannonball. The principle is to stop the competitors in the middle of the desert, make them sleep at the foot of their machine and make them leave the same place the next day. It’s an old dream that I’ve had for quite some time, and which is becoming more and more difficult to implement in today’s world. We have reached a compromise. The crews will set off for 600 km of special only in the dunes of the Empty Quarter. The routes are separated between cars/trucks and motorcycles/quads. So that gave us 1,200 km of dunes to find! This required two weeks of reconnaissance in the spring. Nine bivouacs will be necessary on the evening of this stage. We have planned them from km 200, then 250, 300, 330, etc. From 4 p.m., everyone must stop at the nearest bivouac in front of them. There will certainly be 3 motorcycles in the most advanced bivouac, 5 in the next, then 10, etc. It will be the same for cars. Nobody will have the right to the telephone. Everyone will be isolated and no assistance will be tolerated. They will have to manage on their own. The planned stop at 4 p.m. allows me time to readjust the different camps. Some organizers will call me to tell me that they are overloaded on such a bivouac for example. We can readjust quickly thanks to a logistics solution designed especially by helicopter. The organization will give a sleeping bag, something to eat around a fire, and that’s it. It will be complete “roots”!
What is the sporting purpose of this addition?
We relaunch the adventure and discovery side, which never hurts. Competitors will be cut off from the world, with no information on their classification for the stage and overall. Phones will be sealed. For the next day, we will leave the first 10 of the Auto and Motorcycle rankings according to the differences of the day before from 7am. Beyond that, each vehicle will leave every 30 seconds.
1685876474
#level #difficulty
