LOOKING BACK ON THE FIRST WEEK

January 8 ^th 2022 - 12:00 [GMT + 3]

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SANDERS AND AL-ATTIYAH EARN SANDING OVATION

The 409 vehicles on the start list inaugurated the Dakar like never before. After departing Jeddah along the Red Sea for a northbound 225 km transfer, the starting shot for the qualifying stage was fired at the entrance to the Medina region. The opening 19 km sprint was a sign of things to come: sandy tracks and dunes in an all-sand timed sector in which the entrants crowned and gobbled up dunes, sometimes even broken ones, and climbed to an altitude of close to 400 masl. On this power hike, competitors were expected to bring their A game from the beginning, much like young biker Daniel Sanders (see Stat of the day) and the evergreen Nasser Al-Attiyah, primed for victory by a bountiful 2021 season. The caravan then headed north-east for a 614 km liaison to Ha'il, where the grand start podium awaited the participants for tomorrow's stage 1B on a loop course.

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AL-ATTIYAH AND SANDERS SEE DOUBLE

After the overnight rain over Ha'il and northern Saudi Arabia, mist enveloped the area as the first competitors departed the bivouac in the wee hours. The programme gave pride of place to sand amid mountains reaching up to 1,500 masl and famous around the globe for their rock art. While there were parts with stones, sandy tracks made up 85% of the special, including 4% of dunes. Transposed to the 333 km timed sector, these figures packed a real punch! As David Castera had underlined at the previous day's briefing, the competitors had to be ready for the chips to come down. Stéphane Peterhansel and Carlos Sainz can only agree (see A crushing blow). The two Audi stars got a rude awakening.

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A HAPPY HUNTING GROUND FOR BARREDA AND LOEB

Genuinely swamped by the rain, the bivouac at Al Artawiyah was deprived of the very special evening of the marathon stage it was originally planned to host. Nevertheless, bowing to nature is in the DNA of the rally-raid discipline: without the bat of an eyelid, the organisers and competitors re-routed to the stage 3 bivouac. However, the sporting programme for the second stage did not suffer similar upheaval because, on completion of the 338-km special, heading towards the province of Riyadh, a new 270-km link route made it possible to reach Al Qaisumah, where the caravan will stay for two nights. The competitors in the Dakar Classic category, whose route parallel to the other categories was too heavily impacted by the flooding, travelled directly in convoy to the replacement stage hosting city. 90% of the day’s special was contested on sand, with a third made up of dunes on which the leading lights in the bike category started to close ranks just before the combat between Al-Attiyah and Loeb turned to the advantage of the BRX Hunter.

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A FIRST-CLASS DAY FOR HERO AND AUDI

Today, on the third day of the race, the competitors had to tackle a special that was shortened due to the heavy rain that soaked a part of the region of Al Artawiyah. The stage began at the point which should originally have hosted CP1, reducing the timed section by approximately one hundred kilometres. On a loop around Al Qaysumah, the riders and drivers started with a 214-km link section, before 255 km of special, followed by a 166-km return route to the starting bivouac for the second looped stage on the rally. On the menu, there was sand which, thanks to the rain, was heavier and provided better carry. However, there were also chains of dunes through which the competitors had to wind as well as climb, over a distance of 30 km, classed as level 2 difficulty. From the top of these first large dunes, the elite competitors could already start to scrutinize the route of the long stage in store for tomorrow: Nasser Al-Attiyah and Daniel Sanders, through managing their race on the day’s special, look well prepared to affront it.

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BARREDA AND AL-ATTIYAH'S TROPHY CASES KEEP GROWING

The first third of the race came to an end with stage 4, a formidable challenge and, at 465 km, the longest special of the 44th Dakar. As David Castera put it in the briefing yesterday evening, it was a play in three acts. The first section, 40 km long, was packed with enough forks in the road to give competitors a headache. Then came today's dune area and, to cap it all, a "more technical" finale. Made up of 80% dirt, sometimes drenched in water, such as the wadi near the end of the special, the course from Al Qaisumah to Riyadh featured more threats than opportunities. Peterhansel, Roma, Chicherit and Domżała, to name just a few well-known entrants, were tried and found wanting. However, one racer's pain is another one's gain, and competitors such as Al-Attiyah and Barreda seized the opportunity to expand their stage win trophies.

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FIRST CLASS FOR PETRUCCI AND LATEGAN

Today was an unprecedented one on the Dakar. While in Latin America, specific portions for the bikes saw the light of day, today the entire stage was different for the FIA and FIM categories, who both travelled on different looped routes around the capital, with the cars starting their special in the early hours of the morning just like the bikers, who had previously been used to being the only ones woken up in the middle of the night to leave the bivouac. The reward for the FIA categories for this awakening before the first call to prayers was that the quickest among them were able to arrive at the bivouac and enjoy the early afternoon sunshine. Beforehand, a special measuring 421 km to the north of Riyadh led the four-wheeled caravan into the province of Ach-Charquiya, to the east of the kingdom, bordered by the shores of the Arabian Gulf and the crossroads between the major civilisations of the Orient, Mesopotamia and the Indies. In the bike race, the 346-km special to the east of Riyadh was shorter but held a few surprises in store. Tomorrow, the day before the rest day, the competitors will swap loops: the one to the east for the cars, with the bikes and quads to the north. It will be a crucial day by the end of which all the leading lights will hope to enjoy positions of strategic importance before the return leg towards Jeddah.

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A RED HOT PERFORMANCE FROM SANDERS AND TERRANOVA!

For the last day of racing before the rest day, stage 6 gave rise to a game of musical chairs between the FIA and FIM loops from the day before in the region of Riyadh. The cars and bikes started at the same time from 7.45 AM onwards on their respective specials. While the cars found the familiar traces of the two-wheelers on the ground in front of them, the leading bikers, used to tackling tracks that are unsullied or at least merely marked by a few of their colleagues opening the way, it was an unprecedented experience.

The majority of the route for the timed section was already marked by the passage of the FIA categories the day before. These traces that were sometimes accentuated by the inclement weather, making the route unpassable on certain portions, forced the race management to stop the bikers and quad riders at the first shared neutralisation point, after 101 km. In the end, the bikes and quads only gobbled up a quarter of what was on the menu, meaning they enjoyed extra well-deserved rest from the beginning of the afternoon. This was a blessing for certain riders, such as Joan Barreda, who set out patched up after his fall yesterday. In the car category, the 348-km special to the east of the Saudi capital kept its promises and enabled Terranova and Ekström to shine.