I continue to update the #SEREY sports audience with the 2023 Dakar Rally (at first called Paris-Dakar because it started precisely from the French capital).

We are already halfway through and therefore the candidates are beginning to take shape in each category.

Last Sunday, the vehicles of all categories covered 823 kilometres in Saudi Arabia and crossed the first half of the event; the rally will resume on Tuesday.

With the completion of the eighth stage on Sunday, the 2023 edition of the Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia has crossed the first half of its total route and the remaining vehicles will be back in action next Tuesday, after Monday's break. After the 823 kilometres from Ad Dawadimi to Riyadh, the capital of the host country, each of the six categories has a leader in the general standings.

Qatar's Nasser Al-Attiyah dominates in the car category, Frenchman Alexandre Giroud in the quad category ahead of Argentina's Manuel Andujar, Czech Republic's Ales Loprais in the truck category, American Skyler Howes in the motorbike category, with Argentina's Kevin Benavides as one of the runners-up, Belgian Guillaume De Mevius in the prototype category and Lithuanian Rokas Baciuska in the SSV category.

The classification in each of the categories of the Dakar 2023.

Cars.

Nasser Al-Attiyah (Qatar) - 31 hours, 2 minutes and 58 seconds.
Henk Lategan (South Africa) - +1 hour, 3 minutes and 46 seconds.
Lucas Moraes (Brazil) - +1 hour, 22 minutes and 20 seconds.

Quads.

Alexandre Giroud (France) - 37 hours, 57 minutes and 4 seconds.
Manuel Andujar (Argentina) - +1 hour, 41 minutes and 37 seconds.
Pablo Copetti (USA) - +1 hour, 42 minutes and 12 seconds.

Trucks.

Ales Loprais (Czech Republic) - 36 hours, 30 minutes and 58 seconds.
Martin Vandenbrink (Netherlands) - +16 minutes and 17 seconds.
Janus Van Kasteren (Netherlands) - +38 minutes and 3 seconds.

Bikes.

Skyler Howes (United States) - 30 hours, 34 minutes and 16 seconds.
Kevin Benavides (Argentina) / Mason Kleyn (United States) - +13 seconds.
Toby Price (Australia) - +1 minutes and 58 seconds.

Prototypes.

Guillaume De Mevius (Belgium) - 36 hours, 3 minutes and 9 seconds.
Chaleco Lopez (Chile) - +3 minutes and 19 seconds.
Seth Quintero (USA) - +1 hour, 2 minutes and 25 seconds.

SSV.

Rokas Baciuska (Lithuania) - 37 hours, 33 minutes and 31 seconds.
Marec Goczal (Poland) - +4 minutes and 34 seconds.
Eryk Goczal (Poland) - +5 minutes and 48 seconds.

 

The 2023 Dakar Rally started on 31 December 2022 and will finish on 15 January 2023. The vehicles started in the Red Sea and have to finish 14 stages: 8549 kilometres to the Persian Gulf. They cross the desert and there are some 5000 kilometres of special stages. The organisers described the circuit as the "most demanding" since the event has been held on Saudi soil in 2020.

There were 865 drivers and co-drivers, including 29 Argentinians - 18 as drivers. As scheduled, Monday 9th is the rest day in Riyadh. From Tuesday, the circuit will continue south and enter the Rub al-Khali desert, one of the biggest in the world. The race will finish in Dammam with a route along the region's beaches.

The winners of the 2022 Dakar.

The 2022 edition of the Dakar Rally, the 44th, was the third in Saudi Arabia and in the car division Qatari prince Nasser Al Attiyah dominated with Mathieu Baumel as co-driver in the Toyota. Behind were Sebastien Loeb (BRX) with Fabien Lurquin and Yazeed Al-Rajh (Toyota) with Michael Orr.

Sam Sunderland (GasGas) was the fastest in the motorbike category, followed by Pablo Quintanilla (Honda) and Matthias Walkner (KTM); in the quad category, Alexandre Giroud (Yamaha) won ahead of Francisco Moreno (Yamaha) and Kamil Wisniewski (Yamaha); and in the truck category, Dimitry Sotnikov won with Ruslan Akhmadeev and Ilgiz Akhmetzianov on board a Kamaz. The Kamaz of Eduard Nikolaev, Evgeni Iakovlev and Vladimir Rybakov and those of Anton Shibalov, Dmitrii Nikitin and Ivan Tatarinov were the fastest of the trinomial.

In prototypes Francisco López Contardo, better known as 'Chaleco', was accompanied by Juan Pablo Latrach. Further back were Sebastian Eriksson with Wouter Rosegaard and Cristina Gutiérrez with François Cazalet. In SSV Austin Jones and Gustavo Gugelmin climbed to the top of the podium accompanied by Gerard Farrés and Diego Ortega plus Rokas Baciuska and Oriol Mena.

Last year's championship had no Argentinian winners, although there were (former) Argentinian riders who were champions of the most demanding rally on the planet. Almost all of them won in the quad category: Marcos Patronelli won three titles (2010, 2013 and 2016); his brother Alejandro, two (2011 and 2012); and Nicolás Cavigliasso one (2019) as well as Manuel Andújar (2021). The only one to win outside that category was Kevin Benavides on bikes in 2021.

Source: Dakar 2023.