Why the jury is still out on the Dakar’s route shake-up risk

Anyone who assumed the Dakar Rally had become too easy since leaving its spiritual home in Africa was taken aback by the first few days of the 2025 event in Saudi Arabia. The strategic decision to place the 48-hour stage near the very beginning caused havoc, taking out several heavyweights including four-time champion Carlos Sainz Sr (Ford) and WRC legend Sebastien Loeb (Dacia) – who exited in the next stage after the Chrono.

Dakar has always been ruthless to its competitors but the start of its 47th edition has been particularly brutal. Most of the drivers this year had already experienced a two-day, 48-hour stage on its debut in 2024, but organiser ASO had raised the stakes this time around.

Firstly, the competitive distance was almost doubled from 549km to nearly a thousand kilometres, meaning it was worth more than the last four stages combined. Then, the route for bikes and cars was split, leaving drivers to navigate on their own without the help of any tracks laid out by their two-wheel counterparts. And finally, many drivers had sacrificed the opening stage in order to gain a more favourable road position, obliging them to push even harder to make up the lost ground.

All those factors combined to create mayhem, whittling the field down and leaving several pre-race favourites out of the running, With stages four and five also run to a marathon format, the entire opening week of Dakar could be full of attrition. If it wasn’t for a WRC-style rule introduced in 2022 that allowed drivers retiring from a stage to rejoin the rally the following day, even more contenders would have been forced out by now.

ASO can consider itself fortunate that a resurgent Mini is in the hunt for victory for the first time since losing Sainz and Stephane Peterhansel at the end of 2021. The switch from diesel engine to petrol power has transformed the fortunes of the factory X-raid team, bringing another contender into the mix at a time when newcomers Dacia and Ford are still learning the ropes in cross-country rallying.

The top 10 drivers, representing five manufacturers Toyota, Dacia, Ford, Century and Mini, are still separated by roughly 30 minutes of each other, meaning the fight remains wide open heading to Alula on Wednesday. If the story remains largely the same come the rest day in Riyadh, it will keep viewers glued to the screens during the second half of the event.