The toughest race in the world will begin on January 5th and will continue until the 19th of the same month, in what will be a very intense Dakar 2024. Drivers and teams will have to face long and little-known stages, so it will be essential to have the best possible set-up of the vehicles, and this is where the days before departure come into play, in what will be the “private tests”.
All competitors will find themselves at the Al-Ula bivouac, where the event in the Saudi desert will begin and, of course, they will only be able to enter the bivouac through the main gate, although the exit will be through the assistance gate on days 1, 2 and January 3. During these days, the support teams will only be able to assist their car, motorbike, truck or quad in a specific area and everyone must be equipped with a GPS navigator.
However, private testing will only take place on January 2nd and 3rd, from 9.30am to 5pm local time. That is, the teams will have seven and a half hours to try everything they want.
The two wheels will have their own delimited section, where there will be 23 kilometers for testing, having to travel 89 kilometers in a sort of junction divided into a section A of 50 and a section B of 39 to get there and return. The cars, however, will be closer to the bivouac, with an initial connecting stretch of 8 kilometers and 16 kilometers of return if you want to travel the 29 kilometers of the test stretch.
The trucks will also have their own area, south of the bivouac, and will not encounter anyone who can disturb them. To get to this point, riders will have to travel 14 kilometers in zone A, after which they will have 26 kilometers to travel at their leisure, with another 16 kilometers on the way back.
Although the classics do not involve a speed race as such, it is essential that the vehicle is ready, and for this they have 26 kilometers of test area at their disposal, but they will also have to complete the 31 and 36 kilometers connecting to the area.
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