The 45th Dakar Rally will kick off another season of FIA world motor sport and, for the second year, the event will be the opening round of the expanded FIA World Rally-Raid Championship (W2RC) that will also visit Abu Dhabi, new events in Mexico and Argentina and finish in Morocco.
Toyota Gazoo Racing, the X-raid Mini JCW team, Team Audi Sport and Bahrain Raid Xtreme will lock horns on the longest Dakar for several seasons, which will also feature new rules and regulations and upgraded T1+ category machinery coming up against their rivals for the first time on equal terms.
Toyota Gazoo Racing are the defending champions and field three of the latest T1+ specification V6 Toyota Hiluxes for quadruple Dakar winner and inaugural W2RC champion Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah, 2009 Dakar winner Giniel de Villiers and South African’s Henk Lategan.
Prodrive-built Hunter BRXs pushed Al-Attiyah’s Toyota all the way in 2022 and the British team has entered three biofuel-powered Hunters for nine-time WRC champion and last year’s Dakar and W2RC runner-up Sébastien Loeb, Argentina’s Orlando Terranova and Rally of Morocco winner Guerlain Chicherit, who is running under the GCK Motorsport banner. Lithuania’s Vaidotas Zala drives a fourth customer Hunter.
Team Audi Sport has been developing an E2 version of the Audi RS Q e-tron away from the spotlight of international competition and entered the Open category in Morocco in October. The car features state-of-the-art electric technology and won four stages on a successful Dakar debut in 2022.
Once again, three-time Dakar winner Carlos Sainz will compete alongside 14-time event winner Stéphane Peterhansel and Sweden’s Mathias Ekström. Sainz and Ekström finished 12th and ninth in 2022, while Peterhansel suffered serious delays and dropped out of contention, the Frenchman’s consolation being able to equal Ari Vatanen’s all-time Dakar record of 49 stage wins.
The team has tested extensively throughout the season and the E2 version of the e-tron is sure to be competitive from the outset.
The X-raid Mini JCW Team announced its new Mini John Cooper Works Plus in early December and two cars have been entered in the new T1+ category for Poland’s Jakub Przygonski and Argentina’s Sebastien Halpern. They run on second-generation HVO fuel.
Meanwhile, Denis Krotov and Sheikh Khalid Al-Qassimi will run a pair of traditional Mini John Cooper Works Buggies.
X-raid has an impressive record at the Dakar with six victories since 2012: Peterhansel earned three wins with Minis in 2012, 2013 and 2021, Nani Roma sealed success with team orders in 2014, Al-Attiyah won in 2015 and Sainz prevailed in 2020.
Adding weight to Toyota Gazoo Racing’s challenge will be a further five Toyota Hiluxes entered by Belgium’s Overdrive Racing. Third seed is the 2022 FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Bajas champion Yazeed Al-Rajhi in a team that also includes Dutchman Erik van Loon, Argentina’s Juan Cruz Yacopini, Frenchman Lionel Baud and Brazil’s Lucas Moraes.
Century Racing has entered a pair of CR6-Ts for Frenchman Mathieu Serradori and South Africa’s Brian Baragwanath, while Czech privateers Miroslav Zapletal (Ford F-150) and Martin Prokop (Ford Raptor), Lithuania’s Benediktas Vanagas (Toyota) and French veteran Christian Lavieille (Optimus MD) are more than capable of taking top 10 finishes.