“Dakar 2025 will be more competitive than ever”

He The director of Dakar, David Castera, attended the MD and to a small group of Spanish media to discuss the details of the route on which he and his team worked for Dakar 2025. The Frenchman is sure that poverty remains or even increases and insists that more than before “it will be a Dakar with more resistance than before.”

What changes should be highlighted on the Dakar 2025 route?

The important thing is the repetition of Crono 48, in a different place, a more classic stage of the Dakar. And then, the separate routes for motorcycles and cars at different stages, something that for me will be a real new point that is very important for safety and also for the sporting side for cars.

It will be a Dakar with a lot more sand.

With more than 5,100 kilometers of special, the last three specials are completely dunes and between them they add up to more than 500 kilometers of dunes. And to them we have to add 350 km of dunes in the 48-hour time trial stage. So, there will be between 800 and 900 kilometers of dunes, a higher percentage. Furthermore, it is important to include new things and there are roughly three stages.

He said he would create a different route for cars and motorcycles in several stages. Is it done because cars are getting better and they have to do more difficult stages that are not suitable for motorcycles? Is it too difficult logistically for helicopters to be on two different routes?

Let’s see, they have separate routes, but not by much. So things haven’t changed much for me in relation to helicopters. Logistics is more complicated, yes, but for me logistics must be applied in the service of sport, so the rest must adapt. I always put sport first, that’s my philosophy. It’s more difficult, there are fuel problems, we need more people, but it seems like a necessity to me. Not in the sense that you are implying about the difficulty of the stages for motorcycles and cars. It’s more because many people have said to you: ‘David, I love the Dakar, but this year the night falls at 5:30 and we finish every day at night.’ That makes it harder to find satisfaction and they want solutions. It is in this reflection, and also in difficult for motorcycles to drive between cars. They’ve been together for 47 years, but just because it hasn’t been done before doesn’t mean it can’t be changed.

With my team’s experience, we know we can handle it. It is a bigger task, but I did it for this: so that the drivers at the bottom of the car classification finish the day, earlier than before, because now the last ones have to leave sometimes at 12:30 or 1: 30 pm it’s 5:30 pm, still 500 km. Now, if the last car leaves at 10 in the morning, you will have more margin and luck. You have to think about the former, but the latter. Dakar belongs to everyone and I am there to take care of the different levels of drivers.

How do you see racing in sports cars and motorcycles?

In the cars, I was very happy to see… despite the fact that there were almost retired people, that there was a group of young people coming. There is Cristina Gutiérrez, a woman in an official team like Dacia. There’s Guthrie at Ford, there’s De Mevius at X-Raid who is very good, and at Toyota there’s Quintero and Moraes. There is a new generation that is under 30 or 35 years old that is there. That’s the first thing I can highlight in addition to the 4 great sets we have. We are growing and I am happy for the future and the evolution of Dakar.

And the motorcycles?

With motorcycles it is something different, because we have a lot of potential and now two or three riders have left. Now there are 5 or 6 that can win and before there were 8 or 10. But we have scores there. KTM is still there, with a smaller team and they will also be in the World Championship. We also help KTM, because they have been with us for over 20 years and 90% of the motorcycles in the rally are KTM. I’m glad to see that they are continuing and that they are there during a very difficult time for them.

This year, two new teams have arrived in the top car category: Ford and Dacia. They both wanted to win the Dakar for the first time, something no one had done. And in a Dakar you define as pure resistance. Can they do it or does Toyota have an advantage?

I think Toyota has a small advantage because it has a more developed car, with more experience. That’s better, sure. But be careful. Ford has a small advantage over Dacia because it started testing and they went to Morocco earlier. Dacia started in August, at the last minute and yes, they won the Morocco Rally, but it was a short event compared to the Dakar, so it wasn’t quite the same. So we’ll see. Toyota may have less drivers with absolute quality compared to Ford and Dacia, but they have a car with great development and I am almost sure that Toyota can be on the podium, while for Ford and Dacia the result is more unknown.

Last year there were many complaints from Audi about the differences in power and weight between the cars. Do you think there will be controversy about it this year?

Have you ever seen someone who didn’t complain about something? Tell me what world you live in and I’ll go now. Audi complained last year and ended up winning. I’m getting used to it. This year there is something new: the power curve controller. Which in theory should guarantee equality. Now we have to see if it works properly and surely someone will blame it, but I think we can make these problems easier. But we are a sport where we accept diesel, turbo, naturally aspirated, two-wheel drive, four… and that’s a good thing, because all types of vehicles can be accepted. I don’t think we’re too far from that parity. There wasn’t much talk about that at the Morocco Rally, so that means the FIA ​​isn’t far from a solution. And Carlos is far from knowing that this limiter is there because it will help a lot to preserve the difference between turbo and naturally aspirated engines.

Have you planned the last part of the rally for excitement until the end? Can things happen until the last day?

In rally architecture I always try to stay interested until the end. But also, the Empty Quarter is a complicated area, because to go there is a very long connection. If I rotate it there is a link that repeats itself. There are two solutions: start or finish. I prefer the rally finish, which is easier to arrange logistically. I started building the route with the idea of ​​ending there, and from there I drew the Dakar in reverse.

The Dakar will end in the ‘Empty Quarter’, a place with the most difficulties for communications at a time when all the television and media stations want to send their information on the end of the edition and its winners. Does that mean bigger logistical problems?

We made an extra effort. We have installed more satellite antennas to transmit the images and for everyone to have proper access to the internet. Unfortunately, fiber optics isn’t coming this year…

Have you thought about including bonuses for cars that have to open the track on days when the route for motorcycles is different from the route for cars? Maybe that’s why car drivers don’t want to win in the previous stage to avoid being first.

No, for that reason I put groups of two stages with different routes of motorcycles and cars. For example, stage 6 will give the order of stage 7. If you start on 10th or 11th you can win the stage, but if you win, you have to open stage 8, which is also a separate route . I tried combining the two so that one cancels the calculation of the second. You may win once and lose the other, or vice versa. I want to put bonuses for cars that open the track, but we have to go gradually to the FIA.

In recent years there have been stages that marked the outcome of the Dakar as soon as possible due to their large rocks and many holes. Can this happen again?

Nope. I tried to prevent it from happening. I didn’t do it on my own. It just happened by chance. One of those days you say it rained hard and it washed all the sand away and the rocks were higher than usual. It’s a whole bunch of things. But no. If you kill the race on day 1 it is of no interest. I tried to keep it from less to more and to save the strong things for the second week. Yes, the Chrono 48 stage is at the beginning, but it shouldn’t change everything either, they are two normal stages, with the only difference that they don’t have access to help. I think this Dakar is about endurance, it’s not a sprint. And I am happy because the DNA of the Dakar is not sprint and this year it is more endurance than ever. If a competitor asks me for advice I will tell him to go fast, but at the same time, gradually … how many kilometers there are, until the end making no mistakes will be difficult and if you always going full speed… It’s over 5,100 kilometers and it’s crazy.