From the sand of the Dakar Rally, to the dirt of ProMX to the burning rubber of the Australian Superbikes, there’s a host of .
The 45th running of the iconic rally-raid for cars, bikes, quads and trucks will once again take place in Saudi Arabia, the fifth time since the rally first arrived in the Middle East in 2019.
In 2024, the rally will commence on January 5 from Al-Ula with the traditional Prologue and head east towards the Empty Quarter in the country’s Eastern Province, before looping around and heading back west towards the end destination of Yanbu on January 19.
The event will cover 5000km of the Al-Ula to Yanbu route, 60 per cent of which are new stages introduced to the rally for the first time. Also being introduced to the rally will be a 48 hour ‘Chrono Stage’ held on January 11-12.
The 600km stage across the Empty Quarter will encompass two separate routes for cars and bikes, respectively, and will stop racing at 4pm local time at the nearest mini-bivouac which is dependent on where they’re located on the route. There are eight mini-bivouacs that will be set up along the course. Racing will recommence racing at 7am the next morning to complete the stage.
The event organisers have also introduced a new environmental initiative called Dakar Future. Up to ten vehicles, ranging from cars, bikes and trucks, will adopt alternative sources of energy from fully electric power units to hybrids, as well as vehicles running on biofuels and hydrogen. The ten selected will run a different route to the main competition, with routes up to 100km a day, with teams also judged a jury of technical experts who will monitor things such as reliability, consumption and their carbon footprint.
One final major change for 2024 is the Classic Dakar. In this year’s event, 184 teams took part in the event, which included the Australian team of Peter and Christopher Schey. The amount of entries accepted by ASO for 2024 will be capped to 100.
As we saw in this year’s event, the Dakar Rally’s reputation for being a brutal test on humans and machines was on show for all to see. It’s set to be the same again in seven months time and you can catch every stage of Dakar EXCLUSIVELY on SBS and SBS On Demand.
