Dakar 2023 will have 15 days of competition with a prelude and 14 stages

The fourth edition of Dakar in Saudi Arabia, which will take place from December 31, 2022 to January 15, 2023, will have an unprecedented itinerary, with 15 days of competition (14 stages including a prologue), that will take pilots and crew from the shores of Red Sea on the shores of Persian Gulf in Dammamreported by the organizers this Sunday.

“This diagonal, which will cross the country from side to side, will propose a complete circuit of 14 stages that will lead the race towards the mountainous regions of the northwest, before heading southeast for three day dive in the dune ocean of the Empty Quarter“, they added.

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In addition, Dakar 2023 is unique in its duration: 14 stages in which a prologue is added to result in 15 days of competition.

“The route includes 70% of the unplanned specials. The format is also the most crowded the rally has to offer in its most modern stage, as the scheduled specials are almost 450 kilometers away, while the distance is reduced. of link sections with ideas of cutting the time needed to cover these sections and return to the bivouac. In total, about 5,000 kilometers of specials. The longest distance traveled since the 2014 edition “, they pointed out.

Also, the route of most specials will be divided into two sections that are more or less the same length and the route books or ‘roadbooks’ of these itineraries A and B will be distributed randomly, ”indicating that pilots Those who are tempted to unreasonably follow the condition of those ahead risk losing their waypoints and may receive heavy penalties. “

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Also in 2023, compensations will be given to motorcycle riders so that they are not penalized for opening the track the day after winning a stage. The organizers recall that “opening the track puts the rider in the most dangerous position possible, to the point that victory on stage can be thought of as a penalty, which is why some riders deliberately put the brakes on so as not to expose the themselves in an almost inevitable waste of time in the next stage. “

In addition, from the next edition all vehicles will be equipped with a digital version of the roadbook.

In the “energy transfer process”, which began with the creation of the T1-U category and the emergence of Audi’s 4×4 hybrids, winners of four specials with Carlos Sainz, Mattias Ekström and Stephane Peterhansel“new projects that are aging and advances in the use of biofuels or synthetic fuels will greatly reduce the carbon footprint of vehicles.