Dakar rally odyssey in one of the most inhospitable deserts in the world

The 48-hour special against the clock drawn by David Castera, director of the Dakar rally, is a tribute to Jean-Claude Morellet, the person who drew up the first route of the Paris-Dakar on behalf of Thierry Sabine, creator of the rally rally. In Dans l'enfer jaune, published in 1975 and republished in 2019 by Interfolio livres, this adventurer of those who no longer exist tells of his passion for travel, motorcycles and the impenetrable spell of the desert, the same one that the caravan now experiences in one of the least explored moors of the planet. “The call of the desert is like the vertigo of the depths,” writes the author, now 77 years old, in these memoirs of his youth.

Although with GPS and all the current technology in rallies things are no longer what they used to be, in Rub Al Khali, the largest continuous surface of sand on the face of the earth—larger than the Iberian Peninsula—the competitors were able feel the rawness and beauty of this inhospitable wasteland. Also its hardness under a blazing sun, starting very early at six in the morning to stop in the middle of nowhere at four in the afternoon. Some will have to spend the night in a makeshift camp with nothing 250 kilometers around. There they will spend a unique evening with their vehicles and rally companions, from the most famous to the most modest of the caravan. In the seven bivouacs arranged by the organization, they must survive with a tent, a sleeping bag and a military survival ration for 24 hours: cup, cutlery, 6 liters of water, aluminum stove, can of spaghetti, another rice with chicken and vegetables, soup and tea sachets, sweet and savory cookies, pastries and a chocolate bar. Nothing else. No bathrooms, no cell phones or any way to contact the outside except in an emergency.

“Fenouil [hinojo en francés, como llamaban a Morellet por sus pelos] He was director of my first Dakar in 94 and organized the Pharaoh rally among many other adventures. He always thought about sending the pilots alone into the desert and making them stop there at night. He was a little crazy, but he always listened to him and that concept resonated with me. 'They leave, they stop, you sleep, and they leave again and stop again…' The idea is not bad at all, and from there this idea adapted to today's standards has emerged,” Castera explains to EL PAÍS. On the eve of this immersion into the unknown, the race director had a great time explaining to the participants the secrets of an unprecedented day in the modern era of the rally.

“Here you can only try to rest and cross your fingers,” said Lucas Cruz, Carlos Sainz's co-pilot, on Wednesday night. The big concern after the previous briefing was being able to get enough fuel, and finally modifications had to be made to the route for the cars, shortened to 549 km. The motorcyclists, who had 626 km of special, also suffered fuel problems, and more than one was left stranded until someone gave them some of theirs. Chilean Pablo Quintanilla, winner of the previous stage and sixth overall, lost more than an hour when he ran dry 12 km from the first refueling point.

The headlines of the day were the discards due to abandonment or mechanical problem. Skylar Howes, another of the official Hondas, was out of the race, and the Saudi Yazeed Al Rajhi, leader in the overall car category, abandoned after suffering an accident at kilometer 51 and destroying his Toyota. Another candidate for victory, Stéphane Peterhansel, with hydraulic problems in the Audi, had lost more than two hours in the dunes at the end of the day. The virtual classification for the break once again places Carlos Sainz in the lead with about 15 minutes ahead of his teammate Mattias Ekström and elevates Ricky Brabec, American from Honda, as a reference on two wheels closely followed by Ross Branch (Hero) . His colleague in the Indian project, Joan Barreda, who was in charge of opening the track all day after his crash in the fifth stage, held on like a wild boar on the bike, but lost almost half an hour to the fastest rider of the day, the Frenchman Adrien Van Beveren, when they parked their mount to begin preparing for the night outdoors.

Theoretically, the pilots had to be blind in terms of classification, although more than one brought friends in the caravan to ask the situation during refueling stops, located in areas with some mobile coverage. “The only thing you can do is accelerate and do your best,” warned the Audi native from Madrid before leaving the Shubaytah camp. He did one and the other, since he pulled the TVs to ask how things were going. “Very good,” was the obvious response.

Tomorrow, Friday, half an hour before the departure of the first competitor, the organization will honk three times to alert—or wake up—the members of each camp, who must collect all their belongings to resume the march and complete the stage from the point where they left. They stayed Thursday evening. Most will have between 100 and 150km of special left. Al-Attiyah will sleep tonight separately from Sainz and Loeb, while the motorcycle favorites will be able to join forces. With the golden and reddish tones of the Rub Al Khali dunes in the background, you will experience a movie sunset. Here, after all, the idea behind the Frank Herbert saga was born Dune, brought to the big screens in 2021 and with a second installment in 2024. It will, however, be a brief respite in the halfway point of the demanding competition, which this Saturday reaches its rest day in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. There will still be six stages and 3,714 kilometers, 2,384 of them timed, to complete another edition of this peculiar epic.

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