The course
For the third year in a row, the rally-raid will cross the great outdoors of Saudi Arabia.
Twelve stages are on the program from Saturday until January 14 with a rest day scheduled after six days of racing.
More than 4000 km of specials will be on the menu (8,375 km with connections).
January 1: two long connections to reach Ha'il from Jeddah, 834 kilometers further west, interspersed with 19 km of special to decide the starting order for the first stage the next day.
January 2: a loop of 546 km (334 km of special) to return to Ha'il on tracks in the middle of the mountains.
January 3: 585 km between Ha'il and al Artawiyah (SS 339 km) and the first laps in the dunes.
January 4: 554 km (SS 368 km) between al Artawiyah and al Qaisumah, sand, sand and ... sand.
January 5: departure from al Qaisumah and 707 km and the longest special of the event, 465 km, for a first arrival in the capital Riyadh.
Track, rock, dunes, wadis, everything goes there.
January 6: first loop around the capital, 563 km, half of which is special, and 80 km of dunes.
January 7: second loop, this time west of Riyadh, 635 km including 421 km of special.
January 8: rest day
January 9: departure from Riyadh for al Dawadimi, never visited by the Dakar.
700 km (SS 401 km) with over 100 km of dunes from the start.
January 10: the longest stage of the fortnight, 828 km (SS 394 km) between al Dawadimi and Wadi ad-Dawasir, and sand dunes on the first quarter of the day.
January 11: a 490 km (SS 287 km) mountain loop around Wadi ad-Dawasir.
January 12: 757 km (SS 374 km) for the fastest route of this Dakar 2022 between Wadi ad-Dawasir and Bisha.
January 13: a 500 km loop around Bisha, 345 km of special where competitors will encounter all types of dunes.
January 14: last stage, 676 km (SS 163 km) to reach the Red Sea and the podium on the Jeddah Corniche from Bisha.
The engaged
1065 participants will set off in total including the Dakar Classic drivers and co-drivers, i.e. 578 vehicles (149 motorcycles, 97 cars, 21 quads, 58 trucks, 44 T3 and 61 T4, 128 Dakar Classic cars and 20 Dakar Classic trucks) .
63 nationalities will be represented with the French leading in terms of registrations (196) ahead of Spain and the Netherlands.
60 women will take part in the event with five 100% female teams.
Motorcycles and cars favorites
Motorcycles
: the games are once again very open with around ten potential winners.
Ricky Brabec in 2020 and Kevin Benavides last year put an end to KTM hegemony on Honda's handlebars, but the Austrian manufacturer fully intends to recover his throne ... with the Argentine title holder, in fact, passed under his banner of Red Bull KTM .
The American Ricky Brabec (Monster Energy Honda) will therefore have a hard time facing the rival armada made up in particular of Toby Price (Red Bull KTM) and Matthias Walkner (Red Bull KTM).
What if Yamaha created a surprise with Adrien Van Beveren to find the peaks abandoned since 1998 and a certain… Stéphane Peterhansel?
Cars
: We can put a part without taking too big risks on the Toyota Overdrive clan and its trio of drivers Nasser Al Attiyah, Giniel De Villiers, and Yazeed Al Rajhi at the controls of the new generation Hilux. If the Hunter of the Bahrain Raid Xtreme team has erased his youthful faults of 2020, there is no doubt that Sébastien Loeb, Nani Roma and Orlando Terranova will be able to hold up to the aforementioned trio, even if the preparation for the The team was a bit short. Will the Audi Sport Team, which has entered the rally-raid, manage to join in the fight with its three Audi RS Q e-tron developing 680 horsepower thanks to a hybrid engine? The builder's cars with the rings left the garage late, in July,and could encounter some youthful worries with unprecedented technology in rally-raid, even if the German clan recruited the best in the discipline: Stéphane Peterhansel (14 wins) and Carlos Sainz (3 wins). Finally, on the underdog side, the X Raid Orlen Team and the Polish Kuba Przygonski could do well in the event of repeated breaks among the favorites.
How to follow the race
With regular updates on the sports section of Figaro.fr but also on television around three daily meetings with
France Télévisions
:
"Le Dakar" on
France 4
: from Monday to Friday at 7.45 p.m. and from Saturday to Sunday at 7.20 p.m .: 40 minutes live in and around the race.
“TLS Dakar” on
France 3
.
Every evening from 8:45 p.m. except Saturday January 1 at 8:15 p.m., the meeting point to find out all about the latest race news, results and rankings.
“Bivouac” on
France 2
.
Every evening in the second part of the evening except Saturday January 1 and Friday January 14: an immersion in the heart of the bivouac, to tell the beautiful stories that make the Dakar.
The best moments of the day's stage will be relived in large format summaries.
