The 2020 Dakar Rally – a huge challenge for competitors and BFGoodrich® tires alike!
The 2020 motorsport season got off to a flying start on January 5 when the 342 car, motorcycle, quad, truck and SSV entries got their first taste of the first Dakar to be hosted by Saudi Arabia.
This year’s menu features an overall distance of 7,800 kilometres divided into 12 stages totalling 5,097km of sand, dunes, rocky trails, sharp stones, camel grass, thorn bushes and twisty gorges.
Navigation skills have already been put to a tough test, while the Dakar regulars have been familiarising themselves with the event’s new venue which has led the drivers to adapt their respective styles.
It’s also been a punishing first week for our tires which have had to cope with fast, rocky portions over which a switch to higher pressures seemed to prove more efficient.
The first three days clearly unsettled numerous competitors as they came to terms with the surprises thrown at them by the terrain. The early pace-setters were effectively less well known than the likes of Al-Attiyah, Sainz, Peterhansel and De Villiers, with Lithuania’s Zala and Domzala topping the first stage’s car and SSV orders respectively. Argentina’s Terranova showed well, too.
The local experts also hit the ground running, with both Sheikh Khalid Al Qassimi and Saoudian Yazeed Al Rajhi figuring inside the provisional top 10.
Meanwhile, all three Red Bull Junior (OT3) runners have succeeded in posting fastest times in the SSV class on BFGoodrich® rubber, a performance the team’s two young American Dakar rookies and their ‘coach’ Desprès are understandably proud of!
Many competitors and followers were surprised by the cold Saudi Arabian desert nights which saw the thermometer dip to freezing point in the Neom area, prompting competitors and followers alike to don their parkas, woolly hats and scarves on several occasions. The region’s camels even found themselves grazing in snow after the rally had been through.
At the well-earned Rest Day on Saturday, January 11, after completing 2,374 competitive kilometres, competitors could be heard describing how they had been won over by the breath-taking scenery, especially in the Al-Ula region, ancestral home of the Nabataeans and famous for its enormous, ochre-hued, rounded rocks.
For BFGoodrich®, the first six days proved particularly gruelling over the Saudi Arabian terrain which has been much harder than in recent years, leading to a high number of punctures, a phenomenon the firm’s technical experts have already started to address ahead of 2021.
Meanwhile, the BFGoodrich® Service Center has handled 50 percent more tires than at the same point last year, since 80 percent of the cars are competing on BFGoodrich® tires compared with two-thirds in 2019, while two SSV runners in three have chosen the American brand’s rubber this time around, compared with just two 12 months ago.
The crews took advantage of the Rest Day to relate their adventures to the media. Many of them also found time for a relaxing massage, while their mechanics refettled their respective vehicles ahead of the final week. The day was also a chance to catch up with families and post stories on social media.
The German who was able to contest the Dakar for the first time in in 2018 thanks to backing from BFGoodrich® is hoping to do better than two years ago when he was eliminated after Stage 6. “This is much more like the early Dakars that were held in Africa. We’ve got stages of more than 300km back on the menu!”
This year’s longest stage effectively exceeds 450km, while the fortnight’s longest legs exceed 800km.
With one week and 4,100 kilometres remaining (including 2,700km of against-the-clock action), Sainz, Al-Attiyah and Peterhansel have emerged as the front-runners in the fight for this year’s car victory, while the top five SSV runners – Currie, Lopez Contardo, Kariakin, Hinojo Lopez and Rautenbach – are covered by a less than a minute!
Survivors will need to take doubly care in the course of the event’s second half which is likely to be just as demanding as the first, but BFGoodrich® has a real chance of scoring its 16th Dakar victory.
