“It will not be a Dakar like the last ones, at least outside of the car,” he admitted Carlos Sainz at the presentation of his project in Madrid. The ‘Matador’ faces as the current champion one of the most complex challenges he has faced, not only because the toughest raid in the world it arrives in the context that it arrives, but because there is also a very serious fear that the pandemic will take everything away.
ASO, the organization, has already shown organizational weakness in the prolegomena. Not so much because of him, but because of the decision of Saudi Arabia to close its borders in the absence of just two weeks before the start of the most important event of the motor outside the circuits. Several members enrolled in the expedition have stayed on land, such as the Peruvian David Chávez (the only representative of his country initially registered) or the Argentine Carlos Veza (the only quad participant in the ‘Original by Motul’ category, without assistance). Both are two examples of how the logistical chaos to get from South America to Arabia has left them grounded.
More worrying is what has happened with two other competitors. Both the Saudi government and the organization itself have established a protocol to try to control the entry of the coronavirus into the Dakar bivouac, for which the first step is to take negative in PCR test prior to landing in Jeddah, where they had to pass another before obtaining a kind of passport that gave them access. Three Spaniards have not fulfilled the first premise: Francesc Ester, truck driver, Jordi Ballbé, also a navigator in the category of desert giants, and Dani Oliveras, Nani Roma co-driver in cars. All three have tested positive for coronavirus (in the case of the latter, the infection has been dragging on since the beginning of December) and they will not be able to be at the start of the great appointment with which 2021 will start.
Constant tests, a strict bubble to avoid contacts and of course masks will be the complements to a Dakar in which, for pure statistics, there will be some more casualties than expected and it will have nothing to do with the dispute of the race itself.
Al-Attiyah, Peterhansel and Nani Roma, Sainz’s rivals
Leaving aside the elephant in the center of the room, this Dakar is going to be a sporting challenge for the competitors. As in 2020, the big favorites will be the members of the X-Raid and Toyota teams, with Carlos Sainz and Lucas Cruz as the defending champions at the wheel of the MINI JCW Buggy with which they already know what it is to win. It will be a revision of the two-wheel drive that gave such a good result last year, and that it intends to return to be the dominator against the Hilux by Nasser Al-Attiyah and Giniel de Villiers, Toyota leaders with a possible surprise.
But Sainz will have as his first rival his teammate, the everlasting Stephane Peterhansel. ‘Monsieur Dakar’ returns to the scene, and there are already 32 editions, with the firm intention of showing that he is, like Sainz, a young man who has already passed 50 years with the desire to show that he remains the great ‘bogeyman’. If you are lucky enough that you were missing in previous years, it will be possibly the hardest stone that the last Princess of Asturias de los Deportes will have to overcome.
In this edition a new actor comes into play who, presumably, will be a candidate for everything. Powerful British trainer Prodrive has created the Bahrain Raid Xtreme team for which he has signed two legends: the all-time WRC champion Sebastien Loeb and the only Spanish winner in motorcycles and cars in the Dakar, Nani Roma. The loss of Oliveras as his navigator represents a serious setback for the Spaniard, who will have the Frenchman Alex Winocq at his side and with whom he has been working against the clock to try to understand each other inside the cabin where they will spend the next few weeks, except unforeseen.
The year of Barreda, finally?
It sounds like a cliché, but for another year, Joan Barreda is presented as a firm candidate for the Dakar motorcycle title. The Valencian is the strongest Spanish option on two wheels, although it still has to shake off the weight of not having reached the top in any of the 10 editions it has played so far. If you do not suffer an accident that will weigh you down for the rest of the raid, as in previous years, your objective cannot be other than the podium.
In the vast army of Spanish pilots in Arabia, there will be the classic Laia sanz, although this year it will have an extra rival: Lyme disease. The best enduro rider in history contracted this strange ailment that causes a tick bite, and has been in treatment since mid-autumn, when it was diagnosed. It will be one more challenge before making the final leap to four wheels, first in the project of the Acciona Xtreme (the electric buggies whose championship will be contested for the first time in 2021) and then, perhaps, in the Dakar itself.
The increasingly interesting ‘Side by Side’ category
For a few years now, since its entry into force, the Dakar wanted to give a twist to the narrow traditional classes: motorcycles, cars and trucks. Introducing the quads allowed many ‘motards’ to find a new challenge, but it was the entry of the ‘Side by Side’, SSV or UTV that really revolutionized the raid.
Mix between quads, cars and motorcycles (said very briefly and too succinctly), one of its main virtues is that its base cost is notably lower than that of cars and allows a driving experience similar to that of motorcycles or motorcycles. quads. Its short autonomy and its way of driving them allows many runners to use it as a trampoline, either towards all four wheels or towards both.
Among its competitors there is everything. From World Rally legends like Kris Meeke, who started at the Dakar, to the sordid Thomas Enge, who took part in four F1 races earlier this century with the Prost team but went down in history as the first motorsport driver on being suspended for testing positive for marijuana.
In addition, there are two notable Spaniards among those registered: Gerard Farrés, who was the first winner in this class, and Cristina Gutiérrez, who obtained a seat thanks to the support of Red Bull at the last moment and who will go on to the adventure of the ‘ Side by Side ‘with hardly any experience after several years in cars at the wheel of a Mitshubishi Montero. It will be a great preparation for next year as a teammate with Sebastien Loeb himself in Lewis Hamilton’s team for the Extreme E championship, the electric car raid event.
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