Rally Raid
10 things you never knew about the Dakar Rally
Polish up your knowledge of the Dakar Rally as the toughest test in motorsports returns to the dunes in January 2025. We’ve picked out 10 little-known gems of wisdom about this unique race.
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Let us help you tighten the final screw as you prepare to take in the 2025 Dakar Rally. They’ll be calling you the ‘Brains of the Bivouac’ once you’ve stashed away these lesser-known facts about the world's hardest endurance race.
01
The Dakar Rally is the equivalent distance of an entire WRC season
The Dakar Rally is a marathon not a sprint
© Kin Marcin/Red Bull Content Pool
The Dakar Rally is classified as a rally-raid event, which means it’s a long-distance race that takes place over several days. With a total distance of 7,759km including 5,115km against the clock, the Dakar remains the top dog of all rally-raid events in the world. Since 2022, the Dakar has been incorporated into the five-stop FIA World Rally-Raid Championship (W2RC). Within this series the Dakar gives double points as it's a week longer than the other four rallies on the calendar. In addition to the Dakar in Saudi Arabia, the W2RC will also take its convoy of off-road racers to the UAE, South Africa, Portugal and Morocco in 2025.
02
Don't let a broken bone slow you down
Toby Price carries on his Dakar adventure on four wheels
© Art Eugenio/Red Bull Content Pool
Two-time Dakar bike race winner Toby Price is switching to four wheels for the 2025 Dakar. The Australian will be behind the wheel of a Toyota Hilux Overdrive with his former KTM team-mate Sam Sunderland onboard as co-driver. However, Price’s exploits across a decade in the Dakar’s bike race will not be forgotten in a hurry. Price’s second Dakar victory on two wheels came in 2019 and gave Red Bull KTM Factory Racing their 18th consecutive win at the famous rally. But that isn’t even the most remarkable fact about this particular win. What’s even more amazing than KTM’s never-to-be-beaten winning streak is the fact that Price raced 5,200km to victory with a broken bone! Just weeks before the rally, Price broke the scaphoid bone in his right wrist. He considered giving up his entry to the rally, but instead boarded his flight to Peru and won the final Dakar hosted in South America.
03
Support trucks are both competitors and service vehicles
Waiting for the support truck to arrive
© Eric Vargiolu/DPPI/Red Bull Content Pool
The top factory teams have support lorries that carry vital equipment through each stage that can be used should the top runners suffer an accident or mechanical problem. These support trucks are massive and can cover the terrain just as well as the cars, although they are significantly slower. These big beasts of the desert also race against the rally’s other support vehicles in their own truck class.
04
An eye on the future
Carlos Sainz victorious for a fourth time at the Dakar
© Marcelo Maragni/Red Bull Content Pool
The Dakar's unusual characteristics make it an unrivalled laboratory for innovative technologies. The deserts of the Dakar have regularly served as a testing ground for improved speed as well as safety. The Dakar Future programme has enabled hybrid-powered cars to reach the performance levels needed to compete at the business end of the rally. This was in evidence when reigning Dakar champion Carlos Sainz won his 2024 title in an Audi RS Q e-tron featuring an electric-powered drivetrain. Further avenues continue to open up for technological experiments likely to transform the rally-raid landscape in the coming years. The pioneering spirit of the Dakar is also at the heart of the Mission 1000 project, an initiative to use the rally to develop more sustainable fuel sources.
05
The rally started with someone getting lost in the desert
Getting lost is a big part of Dakar lore
© Florent Gooden/DPPI/Red Bull Content Pool
Thierry Sabine, a French motorbike racer, was competing in the 1977 Abidjan-Nice Rally when he lost his way. Realising that navigating the remote sand dunes of a desert posed quite a challenge, he organised the first Dakar Rally. This inaugural edition left Paris in December 1978. The rally gets its name from the capital of Senegal: the location of the original finish line.
06
The Dakar will always be associated with the colour pink
The final stage of the next Dakar features a mass start
© Marcelo Maragni/Red Bull Content Pool
The Dakar’s finish used to be at Lac Rose, 30km north of the Senegalese capital. Lac Rose got its name because the lake is bright pink; caused by a unique type of algae, dunaliella salina. The lake is so striking that it can be seen from space, and the mere sight of it – after two weeks of unrelenting mental and physical punishment – has in the past caused even fully-grown bikers to spontaneously burst into tears. There will be an echo of the Dakar’s Lac Rose finishes at the 47th edition of the rally in 2025. On the 12th and final stage the convoy will participate in a mass start just like they used to do when the Dakar took place on the African continent.
07
The 48-hour Chrono stage is a race within a race
Cutting-edge technology features on Laia Sanz’s Century CR6-T
© Marcelo Maragni/Red Bull Content Pool
The groundbreaking 48-hour Chrono format was introduced at the previous edition of the Dakar and due to its popularity with fans and racers alike it returns in 2025. The concept at the heart of this two-day stage sounds simple enough; strike the right balance between performance and reliability. But let’s not kid ourselves, nothing is simple at the Dakar. On the morning of January 5, 2025 the Dakar convoy will depart the Bisha bivouac with a course of over 1,000km to complete during the next two days. When the clock strikes 5pm on January 5, competitors must stop at the next rest area they arrive at (there are six rest areas in total dotted along the route). Then on the morning of January 6, the remainder of the timed stage must be completed, finishing back at the Bisha bivouac. Special attention should be paid to the mechanical side of things to avoid getting left behind on this mammoth stage.
Mechanics are kept busy at the Dakar
© Flavien Duhamel/Red Bull Content Pool
08
The lightweight divisions unearth new talent
Since the Dakar’s relocation to Saudi Arabia, there has been a huge uplift in competitors entering into the Lightweight Divisions of the rally such as the Challenger category. Challenger machines such as the Taurus T3 Max house both a driver and co-driver, and measure up to a two-thirds version of the Ultimate class race cars driven by the likes of Carlos Sainz, Nasser Al-Attiyah and Sébastien Loeb. Competing in the Challenger class is seen as the ideal way to progress from training wheels to the sharp end of the rally. This has been shown by recent Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team graduates Seth Quintero, Cristina Gutiérrez, Mitch Guthrie Jr. and Guillaume de Mévius who have all secured factory drives in the Ultimate class at the 2025 Dakar after proving their worth in the Challenger category.
“The Challengers are limited to a top speed of 135kph while the Ultimates can hit 170kph,” explains De Mevius, who finished as runner-up on his Ultimate class debut. “The bodywork strength of the Ultimate is also a significant upgrade, you can attack much more over rocks and jumps. You soon find the limit in a Challenger, but an Ultimate car can take you anywhere.”
09
The landscapes will blow your mind
The Saudi Arabian scenery never fails to impress
© Florent Gooden/DPPI/Red Bull Content Pool
After being hosted by Africa and then South America, the Dakar’s latest home is Saudi Arabia. The Middle Eastern nation has stunned competitors with its desert terrain, making it the ideal Dakar host. Few things left the field of the Dakar as awestruck as AlUla and the surrounding region when the race first landed in Saudi Arabia in January 2020. The kaleidoscopic landscapes blend the weight of history and an element of mystery in a humbling experience.
The Dakar has returned time and again to AlUla following its first encounter with archaeological sites from the dawn of time and the Nabatean temples sprinkled around the old town. It’s in the canyons of AlUla that Dakar competitors will be tested against the Marathon Stage of the 2025 Dakar Rally. Under Marathon Stage rules competitors spend a night camping in the desert separated from their mechanics, meaning any repairs needed are a solo job.
10
The drivers don’t have time to stop and…
Some of the drivers struggle with the notion of staying in the car for an entire day. Some stages require 12 hours of driving and, well, sometimes nature knocks on the door. Therefore some of the drivers have sacks in their race suits so that they can pass urine as they pass rivers and boulders at 170kph. It’s just one of many sacrifices made in the name of completing – and trying to win – the Dakar Rally.
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