The test route has been confirmed, which will begin on January 31 of this year and end on January 15, 2023.
Half a year before the next great adventure, the organization announced the characteristics of the next Dakar, which will be the first date of the 2023 FIA-FIM Rally-Raid World Championship.
For Dakar 2023, the caravan will cross from the coast to Saudi Arabia, starting on December 31 on the shores of the Red Sea and ending on January 15 in the Persian Gulf, in Dammam.
This diagonal, which will cross the country from side to side, will propose a complete circuit of 14 stages that will lead the race to the mountainous regions of the northwest, before heading southeast for three days. dive into the ocean of sands of the Empty Quarter.
The beach and the return to coexistence will be the center stage from the arrival of the participants in Saudi Arabia, as the new Grand Departure format plans to bring the entire Dakar caravan together in the same camp in the second phase of technical and administrative events. review (The first will take place at the Castellet circuit at the end of November). The infrastructures have been redesigned for the occasion with the aim of combining more spaces for recreation, coexistence and interaction.
The details of the tour
The Sea Camp concept consists of re -creating a piece of desert by the sea. The adventure is about to begin. 1 + 14 = 15 DAYS OF RACE Dakar 2023 is unique in its duration: 14 stages where a prologue is added to result in 15 days of competition. The route includes 70% of unpublished specials.
The format is also the densest offered by the rally in its most modern stage, as most of the scheduled specials are close to 450 kilometers, while the distance of the link sections is reduced with the idea of reducing the time required to go through these sections and return to the bivouac.
The “Empty Quarter”
In total, about 5,000 kilometers of specials. The longest distance traveled since the 2014 edition. The entrance to the area known as the “Empty Quarter” will be the star. Dakar’s competitors already know this vast Saudi territory called “Empty Space”, on the Arabian Peninsula, but the raids of the Shubeyta marathon bivouac in 2020 or the loops tracked from Wadi AdDawasir have only revealed a small part of this massive desert.
A deeper dive will now be possible thanks to the fact that the road connecting the neighboring state of Oman will allow a bivouac to be installed at the eastern end of Saudi Arabia. In addition, during the three -day stay in the Empty Quarter, pilots will have to face the added difficulty of a marathon stage.
place for explorers
Dakar showcases the particularity of bringing together both the starting line of the most successful pilots on the planet and fans who present the sporting challenge of their lives with less pretense. Proud of each other competing on the same route is part of the purest spirit of Dakar. However, the difference between the methods available to professionals and amateurs leads to providing additional encouragement to the latter, who will benefit each day from a classification and diverse assignments.
In this way, based on the results obtained throughout their rally raid races, a list of «Factory» drivers will be identified in each category, while «Explorers» will be able to compete with each other for the reward with direct utility to boost their development in the discipline, such as equipment and other elements.
Random Roadbooks – No Copying
The route of most specials will be divided into two sections that are more or less the same length and the roadbooks of these itineraries A and B will be distributed randomly, meaning drivers who are tempted to follow no reasonable means Those who go ahead run the risk of skipping their waypoints and may receive large penalties.
Advantage for opening the track on the Motorcycle
Combining stages brings a yo-yo effect to front-row drivers that can yield somewhat opportunistic racing techniques. Opening the track puts the driver in the most dangerous position possible, to the point that victory on stage can be thought of as a penalty, which is why some drivers deliberately put the brakes on so as not to expose themselves to virtually no avoidable loss of time in the next stage. Well, this year’s compensation will be provided on the clock.
Source: Tycsports
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