The barely 13 kilometers ended with Ekstrom winning ahead of Loeb and Peterhansel, with Sainz sixth and the ‘coconut’ Al-Attiyah fourth | Cristina Gutiérrez wins in T3 light prototypes | Toby Price took the motorcycle podium with Barreda in fourth
Although there are still over 8,400 race kilometers left, the Audi ‘Dream Team’ has made it clear that they are not going to speculate on this Dakar 2023. The prologue, with only 13 kilometers of timed track, was for Matthias Ekstrom, theoretically he is the weakest of the three tokens in the mark with the four rings.
There wasn’t much history on this day, mainly because it was a stage where everyone could recognize it (unlike everyone else) from the previous day. Many of them were running in the area around Sea Camp, where the starting base for this Dakar is located, so there were no major difficulties…or much pressure. In fact, Ekstrom’s victory over Sebastien Loeb, one of the other alternatives, and Stéphane Peterhansel was almost anecdotal, as the differences are negligible even at this stage of the attack. There was only one second between the first and second and eleven seconds between the third. That gives wings to Nasser Al-Attiyah, who starts 4th in the first real stage of this raid that will take place next Sunday, and to Carlos Sainz, who did not push anything on the first day of competition and still achieved a more than optimal 6th place at the end .
The positions are relatively anecdotal. And it is that the Dakar has imposed a curious way of placing them for the first stage, this Sunday: the top ten classified may choose the starting position, depending on their place achieved in the prologue. Obviously nobody wants to open the track, because of the intrinsic difficulty of going on lines that only the engines will have traveled, but they won’t want to start too far back so as not to give up too much in these first stages of the trial.
The motorcycle race started with Toby Price, one of the KTM leaders, fastest, followed by Daniel Sanders in an Australian one-two by just a second. Behind that, Ross Branch left Joan Barreda without the stage’s podium, although the Valencian was left with a very good feeling.
‘Bang Bang’ has been removed from the official Honda structure this year, so he had to make do with a privateer version, albeit with the support of his old team. This has its advantages in spite of everything: he does not have to answer for the structure’s internal policies, as long as he does it alone, although he will have to help them as much as possible.
When all eyes are on Carlos Sainz as a solid Spanish contender for the title in the T1 category, the car category, in the T3 light prototype category, Cristina Gutiérrez has a lot to say. The woman from Burgos is in a sweet moment after winning Extreme E, the championship for electric SUVs, and wants to show that her status as a favorite is not too great for her.
For example, he opened this first contact of this edition of the Dakar with a victory ahead of his Red Bull teammate, the young twenty-something Seth Quintero and the Belgian Guillaume De Mevius, with only 4 seconds between the three. The current champion and big rival to beat in the category, Chilean ‘Chaleco’ López, was seventh but only 15 seconds behind Gutiérrez.
After a semi-celebratory Saturday in the Dakar, Sunday 2023 will start with the first real stage. It will be a loop with departure and arrival at Sea Camp on gravel and stone terrain and a small entrée of dunes serving at this point for newcomers to warm up. A failure at this point would not be catastrophic, but whoever avoids it will be dragged into the attack as early as the first week.
Source: La Verdad
I am Shawn Partain, a journalist and content creator working for the Today Times Live. I specialize in sports journalism, writing articles that cover major sporting events and news stories. With a passion for storytelling and an eye for detail, I strive to be accurate and insightful in my work.
